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FRIENDLY TALES 

A Community Story Book 















FRIENDLY 

TALES 

A COMMUNITY 
STORY BOOK 





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Copyright 1923 

By MILTON BRADLEY COMPANY 
Springfield, Massachusetts 


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Bradley Quality Boots 

Printed in the United States op America 


JUN -8 1923 

©C1A705748 



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4< Our towns are copied fragments from our breast; 
And all man’s Baby Ions strive but to impart 
The grandeurs of his Babylonian heart.” 

Francis Thompson 


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How many miles to Babylon? 
Three score miles and ten. 

Can I get there by candlelight? 
Yea, and back again! 




FOREWORD 


The aim of education is self-realization, the 
harmonious adjustment of the child to him¬ 
self and to life in all its aspects. At first he 
is ego-centric, interested in himself alone, but 
there comes a stage in the development of 
every child when it is necessary to help him 
to find a community ideal, to sacrifice the in¬ 
fant personality and merge himself in a social 
whole. Children should be led as soon as pos¬ 
sible to feel that they live, not alone, but in the 
lives of others. Each child needs to feel that 
he has a friend, a neighbor, a social group in 
school, a town, a country. A help in this edu¬ 
cation is the story which presents through 
symbolism or actual experience the interrela¬ 
tion of individuals and groups; which ex¬ 
presses the merging of the self instinct in the 
social contact. 

Such stories are not easy to find. They are 
best told in terms of imagery, by creating an 
ideal condition of social contact, of friendli- 


FOREWORD 


ness in the widest interpretation of the term, 
through which children may learn that upon 
this sacrifice of the individual to the whole de¬ 
pends life as it should be expressed for a new 
day. 

The stories which follow endeavor to do 
this, to establish a community of childhood 
interests. They are offered to parents, teach¬ 
ers and community workers with the hope 
that they may fill a hitherto unfilled need in 
education through story-telling. 

Carolyn Sherwin Bailey. 

New York, 1923. 



THE MAP OF FAIRYLAND 

PAGE 

In the Kingdom of.Fbiends.1 

The Happy Princess. 6 

How Roses Came.11 

Tommy’s Grumbles.17 

Lucky Two Shoes.23 

Flibbertigibbit.29 

How the Dryad Learned to Sing.34 

The Smile Fairy.40 

How Daisy Chains Came.45 

The Dwarf’s Great Adventure.50 

The Brownie Who Wanted the Moon.55 

The Giant Who Cracked His Heart.61 

The Lazy Giant.66 

The Gnome’s Wish.72 

How the Pixy Kept Warm.77 

FOUR-LEGGED NEIGHBORS AND SOME WITH WINGS 

Bunny Bobtail Builds a Road.85 

Billy Coon Braves the Fire.90 

The Adventure of the Herd.94 

What Happened in the Bees’ Cannery.99 

The Drummer of the Wheat Field.104 

Little House Neighbors.109 

When Toby Ran Away.* 113 

How Tatters Helped.117 

Peter Pan and the Lollipop . , . ,.121 







































CONTENTS 


PAGE 

The Guest in the Playhouse.12G 

How Twinkle-Toes Went to School.131 

The Runaway Cave.137 

When Mud Village Moved.143 

Sharp Eyes Plays Caddy.148 

Dobbin’s Thanksgiving.154 

WHEN GREAT DAYS COME TO TOWN 

A Real Hallow-e’en Witch. .161 

Mooly’s Thanksgiving.166 

Thanksgiving for the Peanut Roaster.172 

In Christmas Town.177 

Christmas Tree Friends.183 

Santa Claus at Patch Hill.189 

The Horse Who Hung up His Shoe.194 

Molly Ann’s Valentines.199 

The Man Who Made Giants.202 

The Coach in the Forest.208 

Raising the Flag.215 

Mixed Easter Eggs.220 

The Little Blue Hen.225 

Mrs. Stump’s Easter Bonnet.230 

In the Flag House.235 

The Fourth of July Surprise . . . 241 

IN TOY TOWN 

The Prize Ball.249 

The Gingerbread Cat’s Adventure.255 

The Kite That Played a Joke.. . 261 

The Surprise in the Freight Car .. . 266 

' The Voyage of the Bottle Doll. .271 

The Teddy-Bear Mystery. 277 

The Paper Dolls’ Adventure ... . . 283 

Saving Brother .. w . 288 

The Wild Trailer.„ 293 

































CONTENTS 


PAGE 

The Useful Cannon.. . . 298 

IN A CHILD’S TOWN 

In the Village of Lights.303 

The Bag of Marbles.310 

The House that Went Downhill.314 

The House that Needed Friends.319 

Fresh-Air Tubby.325 

Mara’s Starling.330 

The Singing Tramp.334 

The Little Boy with the Fur Cap.339 

Their Best Club.343 

The Yard that Grew.348 

Their Block Party.351 

Billy’s Wildcat.355 

The Wonderful Doors.360 

When the Balloon Boy Blew Up.363 

A Dress with Spangles.369 

Timmy’s Mixed-Up Moving.373 














































THE MAP OF FAIRYLAND 





























IN THE KINGDOM OF, FRIENDS 

O NCE upon a time there was a little 
Prince and he awoke one morning very, 
very cross. That may happen in a palace as 
well as in a cottage. This little Prince sent 
back his nice breakfast porridge to the kind 
palace cook saying that it was too soft, and his 
fresh egg, saying that it was too hard. He 
turned away his face when his loving mother, 
the Queen, tried to kiss some dimples into it. 
He scolded his friend, the Court Jester, be¬ 
cause he was too tired to tell him amusing sto¬ 
ries so early in the morning. At last this little 
Prince went out of the palace gates and down 
the road that led to the valley. 

U I shall look for a new kingdom!” he said, 
“a kingdom in which I can make my subjects 
do just as I like!” 

So this cross little Prince went up one lane 

and down another, farther and farther, until 

he had left his home palace far behind. And 

as he went, he came to a strange guide-post at 

the crossroads. It was carved in the shape of 

1 











2 


FRIENDLY TALES 


two hands, crossed and holding each other. 
Under the guide-post sat a wrinkled little 
dwarf with a very smiling mouth. 

“Get up and salute me!” commanded the 
little Prince, “and tell me the name of this 
strange place.” 

The dwarf looked surprised, but he stood 
up at last. He did not salute the Prince, but 
he held out one of his hands and shook the 
Prince’s hand in the warmest kind of way. 
“The name—” he said, “Ah, that is your sur¬ 
prise. You will find it out no doubt. Go on. 
The kingdom is waiting for you.” 

He had been as friendly as if the Prince had, 
himself, been. He had not noticed that the 
little Prince was not himself gracious, and the 
touch of the dwarf’s hand was still warm on 
his as the Prince went on. Such pleasant 
lanes as he found himself in now, lined with 
all kinds of berry bushes and fruit trees, all 
offering him their fruit. And suddenly, as 
he was picking juicy cherries, a large sheep 
dog came along and stood right in his path, 
wagging a friendly tail. 

“Get out of my way!” said the little Prince 
crossly, “I can't pick cherries with you be¬ 
tween me and the branches. ’ ’ 






IN THE KINGDOM OF FRIENDS 3 

The dog was hurt for a moment. Then he 
came closer to the Prince and rubbed against 
his velvet breeches, wagging his tail faster. 
He ran on a ways and then came back. He 
wanted the little Prince to follow him. So the 
Prince did, and the friendly dog led him to 
his beautiful green sheep pasture where there 
were wild strawberries growing thickly on the 
edges, and a singing brook waited to be waded 
in. And there was another of the friendly 
crossed-hands sign-posts. When the little 
Prince had eaten strawberries and enjoyed the 
brook, he left the friendly sheep dog and hur¬ 
ried on until he came to a town. 

He strutted into the town as if it were his, 
nearly knocking over the cart of a cheerful 
looking Pie man who was crying his wares up 
and down the main street. But the Pie man 
only laughed good naturedly and saved his cart 
just in time, offering the Prince a hot lemon 
tart with thick meringue on the top. How 
could one be cross with so much kindness 
about ? The little Prince found himself smil¬ 
ing and thanking the Pie man. 

Farther on, some children were playing on a 
green with the most attractive hobby horses. 
Although these hobby horses were made of 


4 


FRIENDLY TALES 


wood, they were able to trot and gallop quite 
of their own accord. Each hobby horse had a 
small boy or girl rider and they were racing. 

“Give me one!” shouted the little Prince 
dashing up to the rider of one prancing horse 
whose stick was jumping higher than the rest. 
Of course the child need have paid no attention 
to this rude little stranger, but he was very 
friendly. 

“All right,” he said, giving his mount to the 
Prince, “and I will run along beside until we 
get used to him, for he is very hard to man¬ 
age.” 

So the little Prince raced on his borrowed 
hobby horse until the fun of it and the wind 
and sunshine of that nice, strange place took 
all the cross wrinkles out of his face. He gave 
back the hobby horse at last, for the children 
were going home to dinner. 

“Where shall I eat?” he asked. 

And all the children cried at once, “With 
me! ” So he had his choice of all sorts of good 
things, roasted chicken and hot baked pota¬ 
toes, chocolate cake and raisin pudding. And 
in the afternoon, when he knew that he really 
ought to be going home, he asked a traveling 
Tin peddler if he might have a ride with him 




IN THE KINGDOM OF FRIENDS 5 

if he helped to water his horse and held the 
reins while he was making sales. 

“I could ring the door-bells for you, too,” 
said the little Prince, “and carry some of the 
tea-pots and candlesticks. And what place 
is this ? ” he asked the peddler. i 6 1 should like 
it for my kingdom. It makes me feel so com¬ 
fortable and at home. ’ ’ 

The peddler laughed until his eyes were as 
bright as his shining tins. He took the little 
Prince’s hand with the same warm touch that 
had been the dwarf’s at the crossroads. 

“The Kingdom of Friends,” he told the lit¬ 
tle Prince. “It is your kingdom for the ask¬ 
ing.” 

The little Prince considered as they jogged 
along the pretty road to the music of the jin¬ 
gling pots and pans. No one in that jolly 
place had seemed to mind his crossness, his 
selfishness, not even the friendly dog he had 
kicked. Odd it was, that he had never found 
that kingdom before, just a short way from 
his own. Perhaps the Court Jester knew it 
and the cook. Surely his own dear mother, 
the Queen, had been there. 

“I’ll come again!” said the little Prince as 
he reached the palace gate. 


THE HAPPY PRINCESS 

T HERE was, once upon a time in the Land 
of Make-Believe, a little girl who lived 
in a castle and had a Queen for a mother and 
a King for a father and was to be, herself, a 
Princess. But the little girl was not happy, 
because she dreaded coming to be a Princess. 
She thought how dull it would be keeping her 
fine clothes always fine and how heavy her 
crown would be. She felt timid about meet¬ 
ing all the people a Princess would have to 
meet, and she wondered if she would ever be 
able to behave as well as a Princess should. 

Poor little girl-in-a-castle! She dreamed 
about all these troubles every night and she 
thought about them every day. 

And at last there came a day when everyone 
said that it was time for the little girl to begin 
being a Princess, for she was now wise enough, 
and sweet enough, and old enough. Of course 

she had to have a kingdom of her own, so she 

6 


THE HAPPY PRINCESS 


1 

started out by her lonesome little self to find it. 

The sun shone and the birds sang and the 
farmer folk driving along the country roads 
were whistling. But the little girl walked 
along with her head down, because she was 
shy, and she did not see how pretty a day it 
was. And she hid behind the hedges when she 
met another child, because she thought they 
would say about her: 

“ What a lonely little girl that is, and start¬ 
ing out to be a Princess !” 

So the little girl went on and on, feeling 
more lonesome and more unhappy at every 
step, until she came suddenly upon a nice lit¬ 
tle town set in a pleasant hollow among the 
hills. There never was such a nice little town, 
for it was a Children’s Town. She discovered 
that as she came to it. Some boys and girls 
were playing a game in the center, and boys 
tended the gardens and girls kept the houses 
that were set among them. A little boy tended 
the market with small carts full of apples and 
pumpkins and jars of yellow butter and drip¬ 
ping combs of honey. And a little girl kept 
the bake shop, selling fat buns and cherry pies 
and raisin bread. 

“How I would like to be the Princess in this 


8 


FRIENDLY TALES 


town!” the little girl thought as she stepped 
inside it, keeping close to the wall so that no 
one could see her. “Of course they won’t 
want me, though.” 

But none of the children noticed the little 
girl, not even to send her away. They just 
went on with their own affairs, working and 
playing and having very good times all to¬ 
gether. 

So the little girl went up and down the 
streets and she came at last to a house where 
the child who was the mother had a whole 
family of sick dolls. She wanted to go to 
the bakeshop but she couldn’t leave them. 
The little girl who was to be a Princess sud¬ 
denly forgot everything except the doll who 
had the measles and the doll who had the 
whooping cough and the baby doll who had the 
croup. 

“Oh, please, may I take care of the children 
while you go to the bakeshop?” she asked the 
dolls’ mother, and that was what she did until 
the mother came home with a basket full of 
goodies. 

Then the little girl who was too timid to be 
a Princess went quite bravely to the bakeshop, 
and she found the little girl who kept it so 


THE HAPPY PRINCESS 


9 


busy that she did not know what to do about 
the trade. 

“The buns will burn if I don’t watch the 
oven, ’ ’ she said, ‘ ‘ and how ever am I going to 
be able to wait on all these customers?” 

“Oh, please, may I wait on the customers?” 
the little girl asked. And this was what she 
did, counting out and wrapping up cookies and 
pies and tarts and bread until the buns were 
baked. 

Then this little girl who was too timid to be 
a Princess went on to the market and bravely 
held a prancing hobby horse who had just 
driven in with a load of candy eggs and seemed 
to want to upset them. A great many chil¬ 
dren came to the market and they all smiled 
at the little girl as if they had always known 
her, and she did not feel one bit afraid of them. 

When it was time for the market to close, 
they asked the little girl who was too timid to 
be a Princess to play a game with them. They 
asked her to be the leader of the game and it 
was a very exciting one. They shouted and 
ran and laughed and jumped, and the leader 
had to shout louder, and run faster, and laugh 
more merrily, and jump higher than any other 
child. All of which the little girl did, and it 


10 


FRIENDLY TALES 


was more fun than she had ever known before. 

When the game was over all the children 
went to the bakeshop to have a party. There 
was a long table covered with sweets and a 
place for every child in town and an extra 
place at the head. 

“For our Happy Princess!” they cried as 
they led the little girl to the seat at the head of 
the table. 

And that was who she really was, a Princess 
of a Children’s Town, through no bother of 
fine clothes and a crown, but just because she 
fitted in so well with her subjects. 


* 


HOW ROSES CAME 


O NCE upon a time, when there were many 
princes and princesses in the world, 
there was a lazy little Prince. 

No matter what this little Prince started, 
he never finished it. If he decided to drive 
his pet donkey to the market place, he was 
quite likely to let it trot home by itself. If he 
started to lay out a toy kingdom in the royal 
sand box, he almost never got any farther than 
making a few crooked roads. And if he re¬ 
membered his pet rabbits, he often left their 
feeding to the Court Gardener, for he was too 
lazy to pull their carrots. 

This was the cause of great concern to his 
father and mother, the King and Queen, but 
they did not know what to do about it. 

One spring, when the earth smelled sweet, 
the blackbirds were singing, and the sun shone 
warmly, the little Prince went out into the cas¬ 
tle garden and there he found the Court Gar¬ 
dener looking puzzled. He held in his hands 
four queer looking sticks with thorns, very 
sharp thorns. 


11 


12 


FRIENDLY TALES 


“The shoots of a new kind of flower, your 
Highness,’’ the Court Gardener told the 
Prince, “sent to your father, the King, by the 
Emperor Grub, who says that these sticks are 
rare and priceless.” 

The Prince had a slight opinion of this Em¬ 
peror Grub, because he spent so much time dig¬ 
ging and weeding his land, but he took one of 
the thorny sticks in his hand. “I will plant 
them for you,” he said in an important man¬ 
ner befitting a prince. But just at that mo¬ 
ment a thorn stuck into his finger. “Ouch,” 
he said, “No, I think that it will be better for 
you to plant them. But you need pay no at¬ 
tention to these sticks after they are in the 
ground. I will tend them . J1 

So the little Prince idly watched the Court 
Gardener plant the shoots, for he thought in 
his lazy little mind, ‘ 4 1 can get others to tend 
these thorny sticks for me, and if the blooms 
turn out to be unusual, why I shall have the 
credit for raising them.” 

But this was not so easy as he had thought 
it would be. The sticks lived and began to 
turn green in the garden, but each day the 
thorns became more sharp. The little Prince 
gave up even watering them, for he could not 


HOW ROSES CAME 


13 


go near the bushes the sticks grew to be with¬ 
out pricking himself. And the Court Gar¬ 
dener let them alone, and so did the Pages, and 
the other princes and princesses who came to 
play. It was needful to loosen the earth at 
the roots of the bushes, and trim them. 

One day a forester came to the castle with a 
load of wood, and riding on his wagon was his 
daughter, a merry, kind little lass. She 
amused the Prince with tales of the wonders 
of the forest, the speech of the little creatures 
in fur and feathers, and the beauties of buds 
and blossoms that hide among the mosses. 
She was wise in all forest lore. 

“Do you like hard work?” the Prince asked. 
“Will you come here to the castle garden once 
in a while and tend one of these thorny bushes 
for me?” And that is how it happened that 
the forester’s child came and took care of one 
of the Emperor Grub’s prickly sticks. 

And one day the little Prince went down to 
the castle kitchen to see if he might have a few 
cream puffs for breakfast, and he saw a little 
boy there who he had never seen before, a 
kitchen boy who helped the cook. The boy was 
peeling vegetables, and polishing copper pots 
until they looked like gold, and feeding the 


14 


FRIENDLY TALES 


thirteen royal black cats, and cleaning the 
cages of the twenty-five royal canaries, almost 
all at the same time. His hands were rough 
with toil, but he was singing. 

“You seem to like hard work,” the little 
Prince said. “How would you like to go out 
to my garden once in a while, and tend a queer 
bush with thorns for me?” 

So that is how it happened that the kitchen 
boy took care of the second of the Emperor’s 
prickly sticks. 

It was difficult, though, to find anyone to 
tend the third bush. But one day the little 
Prince saw a beggar child looking in through 
the gate of the garden. She wore rags, but her 
eyes were as blue as the sky and as shining as 
stars. She was not asking alms; only looking 
at all the pretty paths and flowers. 

“Do you like hard work?” the little Prince 
said, “because if you will tend a bush in here 
that is likely to scratch you, I will let you 
come in.” And that is how it happened that 
the little beggar girl took care of the third of 
the Emperor’s prickly sticks, but nobody 
tended the fourth one. It grew like a weed, all 
by itself. 


HOW ROSES CAME 


15 


One day in June the whole castle was awak¬ 
ened by a great noise and the sound of horses ’ 
hoofs. The Emperor Grub, with all his ret¬ 
inue clashing their shining spades and rakes 
and hoes, was coming to visit the King. They 
filled the highway and the Court was wor¬ 
ried, for no preparations had been made for 
them. But when the retinue of the Emperor 
Grub reached the garden, there was another 
surprise. The Emperor was shouting with de¬ 
light. 

‘‘Roses!” he shouted. “The first roses! 
Bring forth the brave ones who were not afraid 
of thorns that I may give them each a king¬ 
dom.” 

Everybody went out into the garden, and the 
little Prince stood in front so that he could be 
easily seen. There were the forester’s little 
daughter, the kitchen boy, and the beggar maid 
too, but among the crowd. 

“I own those roses,” the little Prince said, 
but the Emperor looked at him and shook his 
head. Anyone could tell who had raised those 
first roses, only by looking at them. 

There was a sweet tea rose; that was the 
little kitchen boy’s flower. 


16 


FRIENDLY TALES 


There was a beautiful moss rose; that was 
the rose the forester’s little daughter had 
raised. 

There was a wild pink rose, almost the pret¬ 
tiest rose of all; and that was the beggar child’s 
blossom. 

The fourth rose bush? Oh, it was a great 
joke about that! Everybody knew whose it 
was, for it bore huge, fat cabbage roses. It 
belonged to the little Prince, but it didn’t win 
him a kingdom. 


TOMMY’S GRUMBLES 


T OMMY thought, that morning in the 
market place, that he had never seen 
anything so interesting in his life. It was a 
pleasant market place in the pleasantest kind 
of a little town that isn’t on the school map, 
but is easy for any child to find because it is 
in all the story books. A town where every 
single house had an attic and a garden; and a 
market place that was sunny, where one could 
buy anything from a pat of yellow butter to a 
pea green parrot, from a jar of honey to a red 
velvet jerkin. Every Saturday all the chil¬ 
dren went to market, but Tommy was the one 
who was most interested in the Grumbles, who 
had one corner all to themselves. 

They had certainly not been displayed there 
before, nor had the odd little man, so old and 
wizened, ever come before to the gay market. 
But there he was wearing a coat all holes and 
patches and leaning on a crooked cane. There, 
too, were all his Grumbles, spiteful looking 
little things, about the size of an elf but not 

17 



18 


FRIENDLY TALES 


at all as merry. They stuck out of the old 
man’s pockets and swarmed up his back and 
perched on his shoulders. He had one 
Grumble, even, stuck in his buttonhole like a 
nosegay and they were all buzzing and spitting 
like cats and making up faces at whoever came 
near. 

No child wanted one of the Grumbles save 
Tommy, but he was feeling a bit out of sorts 
that Saturday because he was obliged to rock 
the baby in the afternoon. He thought one of 
those surly, funny little Grumbles would be 
amusing to take home and keep in the cage 
from which the linnet had just flown. 

“How much are they?” Tommy asked the 
man. 

“Nothing at all if you want one. I don’t 
sell them; I give them away,” the man ex¬ 
plained. 

“Just one then,” said Tommy, “that one 
with such large ears.” 

“Take them all,” said the man generously. 
“I’ve carried them around with me for years, 
the tiresome little beasts. ’ ’ 

It all happened so suddenly that Tommy 
never was able to explain how it happened that 
the old man disappeared from the market 




TOMMY’S GRUMBLES 


19 


place, and he was left with all those Grumbles 
on his hands. Not a child would help him with 
them. They stuck out of his pockets, and 
swarmed up his back, and perched on his shoul¬ 
ders. Small wonder that the old man had 
wanted to be rid of them, for how they did 
scratch and sting the little boy! 

When Tommy came home he had every sin¬ 
gle Grumble with him; not one had left him 
on the road. And when he shut two or three 
in the linnet’s cage outside of the door they 
squeezed through the bars and perched them¬ 
selves on the dinner table, on the edges of 
plates and bowls. Tommy had often com¬ 
plained about his mother’s good potato soup 
which he had so often. It was worse now, for 
a mean little Grumble soured it. 

So it was all that day and for many other 
days. Instead of being funny, odd little play¬ 
mates, the Grumbles made all kinds of trouble 
for Tommy. If there was anything that he 
did not like to do, a Grumble was on the spot 
first to make it harder for him. They spread 
themselves over his reading hook in school, and 
they planted weeds in the garden. They 
knotted Tommy’s shoe laces and spilled ink on 
his best smock. They led him into mud holes, 



20 


FRIENDLY TALES 


and they drove all his best little boy and girl 
friends away. 

This last was the most natural thing in the 
world, for whenever Tommy tried to play a 
game, out of his pocket, or out from under his 
jacket would hop a blue or a black Grumble 
and spoil the fun. The children began to 
avoid Tommy. 

“I don’t know what to do about it. I can’t 
stand these Grumbles a day longer.” Tommy 
said to himself one day as he was taking the 
whole lot of them for a lonely walk in the 
woods near his house. These woods were the 
only place where the Grumbles were at all 
quiet and of course Tommy was alone, for no 
one save a Grumble would go with him. 

“But you said you wanted them.” 

Where did that voice come from ? Breath¬ 
less, Tommy stopped to listen. 

“Of course you asked for only one,” the 
voice went on, and it had the same sweet note 
in it as the voice of the linnet that Tommy had 
let fly away from its cage. “But there isn’t 
any such thing as one Grumble. 'You see they 
are all brothers and they stick together.” 

“Well, I don’t want them any more,” 
Tommy wailed, jumping up and down, for a 


TOMMY’S GRUMBLES 


21 


particularly spiteful little Grumble was nip¬ 
ping through his stocking. 

How strange! Tommy looked up at the old 
poplar tree from whose branches the voice had 
seemed to come and there was a pair of kind 
eyes in the bark, as if the eyes of the old man of 
the market place were changed to pleasant 
ones. They looked kindly at Tommy. Then, 
like the voice of the wind in the leaves, Tommy 
heard a very soft whisper. It told him what 
to do to get rid of the Grumbles. 

This was not at all an easy thing to do, but 
Tommy sat down on a bank of moss and tried. 
It was indeed hard to do with about fifty mean 
little Grumbles trying with all their might to 
stop him. They stung him, and scratched him, 
and buzzed in his ears, and held the corners of 
his mouth down, but it didn’t do any good. 
Tommy kept right on getting rid of those 
Grumbles in the only way there was to get rid 
of them. 

One by one the Grumbles went. Some of 
them dried up, and some of them lost their 
stingers, and some of them ran away, and some 
of them hid, and some of them changed to little 
creatures like bumble bees, and tumble bugs, 
and hop toads, and other things that never 





22 


FRIENDLY TALES 


hurt one if only one leaves them alone. 
Pretty soon, as happy as he could be, Tommy 
went home without a single Grumble about him 
and he never took on one again, for he had 
learned the trouble they make. 

What did Tommy do to get rid of all those 
Grumbles? Why, of course that would be 
part of his story. 

Tommy smiled . One laugh will rid you of 
all the Grumbles in the world. 


LUCKY TWO SHOES 


T HERE was an odd sign in the shop of the 
old shoemaker of Happy Valley: 

“ A Pair of New Shoes for Your Old Pair. 
Lucky Two Shoes. Come in and Get Them, 
if You Took Good Care of the Last Pair.” 

That was the sign, and the children repeated 
it to themselves and to each other as they met 
in the lanes. Which one of them would have 
those new shoes for the ones they were wear¬ 
ing, they wondered*? Which child of Happy 
Valley was to be Lucky Two Shoes ? 

Just because it was Happy Valley did not 
mean that things came easily, just for the ask¬ 
ing. No, indeed! It was named Happy 
Valley on account of its people who tried to 
make the best of whatever happened. If the 
Bee-Man got stung in gathering his honey, or 
the crop failed the Apple Woman who sold 
baked sweet apples and cream in blue bowls, or 
a child had to give up his play time to gather 
fagots, they did not mind. They tried to be 
happy. It was a cheerful Valley, but the chil¬ 
dren often needed new shoes. 

23 


24 


FRIENDLY TALES 


“I know a secret for getting that new pair,” j 
Jean thought. She did not tell her secret to 
anyone, but she left the home kitchen unswept 
as she spent whole mornings out in the fields. 
After a while, Jean looked mysteriously down 
at her brown sandals when she met her friend, 
Basil. 

“I am wearing the shoes that will get me a 
new pair, perhaps red ones with tassels/’ she 
told Basil with a toss of her head. 

Basil looked discouraged. “What have you 
done to your shoes to make them so lucky?” he 
asked Jean, but she would not answer. No, 
indeed! Her secret was too precious. 

Basil had tried to make his shoes lucky. He 
had asked his little brother to do the errands 
while he stayed home and blackened his Sun¬ 
day boots. Then he let the garden run to 
weeds as he sat and admired his boots. He 
could almost see his face in them, for they 
shone so. 

“I don’t care what Jean says,” Basil told 
himself. ‘ ‘ A pair of neatly blackened, unworn 
boots will win a prize for a boy any day.” 

But the other children had other ideas about 
that, especially Peggy. She did not like her 
shoes anyway, and she thought that this was 



LUCKY TWO SHOES 


25 


a good time to change them. She made a trip 
to the shop where paints were sold for the art¬ 
ists and she changed the eggs her little brown 
hen had just laid for a pot of gold paint. 
This was too bad, for those eggs were to have 
been exchanged for wool for Granny’s knit¬ 
ting. Then Peggy hid herself in the attic, and 
even the oldest spiders came out of the cracks 
to see Peggy gild her stout black play shoes. 
They had seen nothing so exciting in years. 

So all Happy Valley got its shoes ready to 
be lucky, and at the end of the week the sign 
was changed: 

“‘Come Today, Lucky Two Shoes,” it read 
now. U A Fine New Pair is Waiting for 
You.’ ? 

There was a line of children in front of the 
shoemaker’s as long and as gay as any parade. 
And they were all looking down at their feet, 
and so admiring the bows and the tassels and 
the buckles they had put on for the occasion 
that there were several accidents. One child 
fell down and got up so muddy that she had to 
go home. And one child, who had on a pair of 
new shoes, saw that she did not belong in the 
line; it was for those who needed them. And 
another child pushed so that she was badly 


26 


FRIENDLY TALES 


bumped, and sbe went home. All these acci¬ 
dents made the line shorter. 

But it was the old shoemaker standing there 
in the door of his busy shop, who sent most of 
the children home. He questioned them, just 
as Basil had asked Jean: 

“What have you done to your shoes to make 
them lucky ?” he asked one and all. 

“See!” Jean said, slipping off her brown 
sandals and showing a four leafed clover in the 
sole of each. “No shoes could be luckier than 
mine. I spent a long time getting these clo¬ 
vers; they were so hard to find.” 

But the old shoemaker passed on to the next 
child, Peggy. 

Peggy was strutting along in her gilt shoes, 
but the stones in the road and the bushes at 
the sides had scratched them sadly. And gold 
shoes looked oddly with a gingham frock. It 
was the other children who sent Peggy home, 
for they could not help laughing at her painted 
boots. 

So the shoes with bows and the shoes with tas¬ 
sels and the shoes with buckles walked by, but 
not one child wearing them was asked into the 
shop to try on new ones. Even Basil, in his 
blackened, unworn boots, won no comment from 



LUCKY TWO SHOES 


27 


the old shoemaker. And as he turned to go 
home, Basil saw Little Brother behind them. 

“Why did you tag along?” Basil asked 
rather crossly, for Little Brother had on his 
working overalls and a black apron. But his 
clothes were nothing compared with his shoes. 
Little Brother was noted for his ragged shoes. 
It was a large family, with two babies below 
Little Brother, and Basil and Sister, and Big 
Sister above. Being the middle boy, Little 
Brother wore Basil’s old things. Basil took 
his hand and was about to take him home when 
the old shoemaker stopped them. 

He called Little Brother to him, and took 
one of his shoes up in his hand. He pointed 
to the sole: 

“How did you wear that through?” he 
asked. 

“Dragging the babies in their wagon,” Lit¬ 
tle Brother could scarcely speak for his shame 
of his old shoes. 

“And this?” asked the old shoemaker, 
pointing to the holes in the side. 

“Weeding the garden,” Little Brother told 
him. 

“And these?” pointing to the run-down 
heels, the shoemaker asked. 





28 


FRIENDLY TALES 


“Eunning errands for my mother.’’ Little 
Brother thought that, after all these questions, 
he could never hold up his head again. But 
he did as the shoemaker said: 

“Lucky Two Shoes! A boy who wears out 
his shoes in such good service should win new 
ones. Come in and be fitted to a pair.” 

So all the children learned from Little 
Brother’s brand new, squeaky shoes how to 
wear theirs in order to make them lucky. It 
didn’t matter, they decided, about four leaved 
clovers, or gilt, or anything except where the 
ten toes inside took the shoes from morning 
until night. 


FLIBBERTIGIBBIT 


T HERE was hardly a person in the whole 
country of Once-Upon-A-Time who ap¬ 
proved of the Elibbertigibbit. They thought 
her frivolous and of no real use in the world. 

“She dresses like a butterfly and is as nimble 
as a grasshopper and sings like a cricket,” said 
the fussy Fairies. “Why does she not do one 
thing or the other, why does she not pattern 
after us?” 

“She doesn’t stay where she belongs, out in 
the clover patch,” complained the old Goblin 
who waited at the kitchen doors until all were 
asleep and then went in to scour the pots and 
pans and stir the fire. “When any young 
Flibbertigibbit ought to be in bed, there she is 
in the kitchen garden sitting on top of a head 
of cabbage and singing her little tunes to the 
stars.” 

“She keeps house so poorly,” added the 
Brownies. “Oh, we know how she would 
never have fresh, clean curtains at her front 
windows if the spiders were not kind enough 

29 


30 


FRIENDLY TALES 


to hang them for her. She lets the breezes 
do her sweeping and the rain her washing. 
She does not eat her meals at regular times. 
We see her swinging her toes from some stray 
mushroom, with her friend, Bumbling Bee, 
feeding her honey that she was too lazy to 
gather for herself/ ’ 

So the Flibbertigibbit was not very well 
thought of in the country of Once-Upon-A- 
Time. The Fairies, the Goblins, and the 
Brownies belonged to such well-known old 
families that they found it hard to understand 
anyone who was different from themselves. 
Flibbertigibbit was a little stranger in that 
land, a voyager on an airship of thistle-down 
from a harbor of moonbeams. Her wee, crin¬ 
kled, smiling, kindly face seemed to be laugh¬ 
ing at them all. No one knew that she sang 
on a head of cabbage in the evening to keep 
from crying, because she was lonely. No one 
knew how she mended Bumbling Bee’s jacket 
where the wild rose thorns had torn it. 

“Useless Flibbertigibbit!” they all decided 
and then they forgot all about her, for some¬ 
thing dreadful suddenly happened. The coun¬ 
try of Once-Upon-A-Time felt an earthquake 
rumbling under it. It was an earthquake 


FLIBBERTIGIBBIT 


31 


caused by the Children. Over and over the 
Children were saying to each other, 

“We don’t believe in once-upon-a-time and 
make-believe! Oh, no, we don’t believe in 
fairies, or goblins, or brownies, or Santa Claus, 
or anything like them. We believe only in 
what we can see and touch.” 

And these terrible words of the Children 
were shaking the land so that all the little folk 
were close to being swallowed up. 

“Oh, please, do believe in us!” begged the 
Fairies, trying to think of something very 
beautiful to do in order that the Children 
might see them. But they were so frightened 
by the quaking of their country that all they 
could do was to huddle together and flutter. 

But suddenly, out of their midst, there flew 
the prettiest butterfly—as brave as you please, 
her wings a bit draggled but brightly gold and 
blue, and wearing a floating veil of cobweb 
lace. Up, up, she flew, and the children were 
still a minute. Then they shouted. 

“A Fairy!” they cried. 

“Oh, please do believe in me!” grumbled the 
old Goblin, rattling his pots and pans as hard 
as he could so that he would not hear the mut¬ 
tering of the earthquake. “For a hundred 


32 


FRIENDLY TALES 


years I have been scouring the pots every night 
and often helping to make cheese. You are 
ungrateful !” 

But just then there came a cheerful little 
tune from the chimney corner. It was like 
the chirping of a cricket and the singing of a 
teakettle and the crackling of the fire, all in 
one. The Children were quiet a second, listen¬ 
ing. Then they whispered. 

6 6 The Goblin! ’ ’ they said to each other. ‘ 4 He 
is doing the housework and helping the moth¬ 
ers.’ y 

“Oh, please do believe in us!” chattered the 
Brownies, hiding in the forest while their trees 
and stump houses shook and rattled with the 
earthquake of the Children’s voices. “For a 
thousand years we have been making the forest 
pleasant for you. Where are your eyes?” 

And just then a shower of ripe nuts fell to 
the ground and in among them was a little 
brown leaf that stood up and danced and then 
went hurrying off down a winding path as fast 
as it could on its little stem, turning over and 
over as it went. The Children ran after it, but 
they could not catch it. They clapped their 
hands and laughed. 


PLIBBERTIGIBBIT 


33 


‘ 6 The Brownie! ’ 9 they cried. i 6 How fast he 
runs!” 

The Flibbertigibbit ? Oh, yes, this was to 
have been her story, was it not? Well, she 
does come in at the end. It was she, the use¬ 
less, merry little Plibbertigibbit, who dressed 
like a butterfly, and could sing like a cricket, 
and who knew the woods very well, who 
stopped the earthquake in the country of 
Once-TJpon-A-Time. She could fly like a 
Fairy, and sing above the rattling of a Goblin’s 
pots and pans, and make herself into a 
Brownie any day. So that was what she had 
done, and no one ever saw her after that. 

That is why you never saw her. But watch 
for Plibbertigibbit some day when you want 
to be made cheerful! She rides in an airship 
of thistle-down from out of a harbor of moon¬ 
beams, and she has a wee, crinkled, smiling, 
never-give-up kind of face. 



HOW THE DRYAD LEARNED TO SING 


A LL winter the Dryad had been away, but 
as soon as the spring wind began to talk 
in the willows you could hear her voice too. 
The new green curtains that the leaves made 
along the edge of the book hid her green skirts, 
but she was there. Every time the brook rip¬ 
pled the Dryad laughed. Her voice and the 
brook’s voice were ever so much alike. 

The Dryad was looking for a house in which 
to spend the spring and summer, and she de¬ 
cided at last upon the new little willow tree. 
It was so very new a little willow tree that 
John Henry, the little boy who was watching 
it too, called it a willow shoot. But the Dryad 
was a very young dryad, and very, very 
slender. She knew that she would be able to 
squeeze herself away in the new little willow 
shoot, her long hair floating out over the top 
like willow tassels, and when she grew the tree 
would grow too. It was just the prettiest 
home for her! 


HOW THE DRYAD LEARNED TO SING 35 

But several things happened to make the 
Dryad late that spring about moving into her 
new house. In the first place, the brook 
danced so hard, because its ice was melted, that 
it sent quite a little water up on the bank and 
the Dryad did not want to wet her feet. In 
the second place she wanted the willow tree to 
grow a little greener so that it would match 
her dress. And in the third and last place the 
Dryad was afraid of John Henry. How could 
she help being afraid of John Henry, a boy 
eight years old, with a voice as loud as a bull¬ 
frog’s, and wearing a pair of large rubber 
boots ? 

So the Dryad flitted and fluttered about the 
bank of the brook for ever so many days, hid¬ 
ing in this bush, and then in that clump of 
trees, all the time trying to keep a close watch 
of her new little willow tree. But the hard 
part about it was that John Henry was watch¬ 
ing the willow tree too. She heard him talk¬ 
ing out loud to himself once about it. 

“It’s almost ready for me now,” he said. 
“I think I will take it tomorrow.” 

Could it be, the Dryad thought, that this 
great big boy in rubber boots was going to try 
and squeeze himself into the new little willow 


36 


FRIENDLY TALES 


tree ? The idea was so absurd that the Dryad 
went a long way down the bank of the brook 
the next day, laughing every bit of the dis¬ 
tance. She sat, all curled up on a cushion of 
fern fronds and enjoyed herself, fancying 
John Henry living in a tree. 

“Boots and all, I suppose,’’ she thought. 
“I must move in myself tonight.” 

So, just before sunset, the Dryad went softly 
along the bank of the brook, because she was 
going to slip into the new little willow tree. 

But when she came there the new little wil¬ 
low tree, which had been nothing but a shoot, 
was gone. It was cut off close to the roots. 
There it lay, with most of its bark cut off and 
great gashes cut in its side, on the bank. It 
would never be a dryad’s home now, never in 
any spring. 

The Dryad felt as if she had been taken out 
of the spring too. She cried, for she felt as 
the new little willow tree had felt pain when 
it was cut. Then she lay down beside it on 
the soft earth and tried to wrap herself all 
about it and at last she was able to squeeze her¬ 
self inside it, for she still felt that it was her 
new little willow tree. She did not want any- 


HOW THE DRYAD LEARNED TO SING 


37 


one to think that she had given it up just be¬ 
cause it was gashed and had lost some of its 
bark. 

So the Dryad stayed there all night, and in 
the morning a strange thing happened. She 
felt herself, house and all, being lifted up. 
Then she heard a voice that she was quite sure 
was John Henry’s voice, speaking rather 
sadly. 

“I don’t know what’s the matter with the 
old thing. I made it just exactly as Grand¬ 
father told me to, stripped it, and measured 
the spaces for the holes, and everything. And 
now it won’t make a sound, no matter how hard 
I blow on it. I’ve been waiting to make this 
willow whistle all the spring, for Grandmother 
said that she knew she would feel well again 
just as soon as she heard one. She said a wil¬ 
low whistle would make her feel like getting 
right up out of bed and digging in the garden. 
Now, here’s the whistle, but it won’t give out 
a note. I think I will have to throw it in the 
brook.” 

“Oh, please don’t do that!” pleaded the 
Dryad in her softest voice. “If I can’t have 
a new little willow tree to live in, I would just 


38 


FRIENDLY TALES 


as soon live in a new little willow whistle. Try 
me. Blow, and see what will happen!’’ 

If you had told John Henry that a Dryad 
was speaking to him, he would have laughed 
at you. And if you had told the Dryad that 
she would sing, a thing she had never done be¬ 
fore, just because the grandmother of a great 
boy who wore rubber boots, the boy who wore 
boots of course, not the grandmother, wanted 
to have her, she would have laughed at you. 
Her work had been quite different. 

So many wonderful things happen in the 
spring that one can’t explain, but here was an¬ 
other. John Henry put the willow whistle to 
his lips and all at once the Dryad began to 
sing. 

“ Whe-ee!” said J ohn Henry, between notes. 
“ It’s the best whistle there ever was! It seems 
to be a flute.” 

Sweet, and clear, and like the birds and the 
brook and the wind together, came the singing 
of the Dryad from the whistle. It wasn’t the 
kind of place she had chosen in which to live, 
not nearly as beautiful or as well situated as a 
willow tree beside some flowing water, but it 
had given her a chance to sing. And there she 


HOW THE DRYAD LEARNED TO SING 


39 


stayed and sang all spring and summer, which 
is as long as a Dryad stays anywhere, out in 
the garden John Henry and his grandmother 
made. 


THE SMILE FAIRY 


O NCE upon a time there was an unusually 
nice fairy whose birthday came in 
April, and she had everything in the world to 
make a fairy’s life, or a child’s life for that 
matter, happy. This April fairy had a tree, 
all her very own, for which to care. She had 
a flower, all her very own, to tend. She had a 
very wee elf who was her cousin, and she had 
him to take care of. The tree was a young 
white birch and could there be a more beauti¬ 
ful tree than that? The flower was a yellow 
crocus that came up newly every season to be 
a golden cup and hold the spring sunshine. 
Now could there be a prettier flower than that ? 
The elf cousin was small and merry and the 
best playfellow in all fairyland, for he knew 
the chipmunks and the squirrels and they were 
willing to let him play in their nests. He 
never did anything but smile and be cheerful. 
Could there possibly be a better cousin than a 
cheerful elf like this ? 

But in spite of the tree and the flower and 

40 


THE SMILE FAIRY 


41 


the elf she had for whom to care, this little 
April fairy was not happy. 

One reason why she was unhappy was the 
month in which she had been born. A Decem¬ 
ber fairy could help trim a Christmas tree, and 
a June fairy could help open the rosebuds, and 
a November fairy could make for herself a 
cape of scarlet leaves. But a fairy who was 
born in April had to leave her gauze and her 
crown at home, she had to fold her wings and 
carry a toadstool for an umbrella when she 
went through the woods. This April fairy did 
not like it at all and she grew to have a wrinkle 
in her pretty forehead. She cried so much 
that her umbrella was not of the slightest use 
in keeping her dry. But the worst of it all 
was that the other fairies did not want to play 
with this crying fairy. They kept away from 
her, and this was natural. Nobody, fairy or 
mortal, likes tears. 

So, April after April, this cry-fairy went 
her lonesome way keeping up with the weather 
as well as she could with her tears. It got 
worse and worse until the season when this 
story begins. 

She knew where her duty lay when the first 
of April came. First, she must go to the place 


42 


FRIENDLY TALES 


beside the brook where her young birch tree 
lived and put her little soft hands on its 
branches to bring out the leaves. Then she 
must go to the lawn where her yellow crocus 
slept all winter and lay her soft little hands on 
the grass to coax the crocus to come up and 
open its cup. Last, she must hunt all about 
through the forest, in squirrels’ nests, in rab¬ 
bits’ holes, in cozy hollows where the moss 
grew, and in heaps of old leaves until she 
found the place where her cousin, the elf, had 
stayed for the winter. She must wake him up 
and brush off his clothes and find him some¬ 
thing nice with which to play. 

This particular April, the cry-fairy started 
out to do these things, but strange to say she 
could not accomplish them. 

She was keeping up with the weather as 
usual. Beneath her toadstool umbrella she 
was crying a steady stream of tears, and when 
she put her hand on the soft bark of the birch 
tree, suddenly, leaves came out, but only half 
leaves! Try as hard as she could she was not 
able to get a cloak of whole leaves for her tree. 
At last she had to give it up and went on to her 
crocus to try and coax it to come up out of 
the ground. She was crying now about her 








THE SMILE FAIRY 


43 


tree, and the crocus seemed to feel it. Only 
the crocus bud showed. It simply would not 
open its cup. 

So things went from had to worse with this 
cry-fairy. She found her cousin, the elf, 
ready to be waked and brushed and played 
with in a last year’s birds’ nest, but when he 
saw her teary face he, too, began to cry. He 
would not stop and he made so much noise that 
there was danger of the bluebirds and the 
thrushes being frightened away from the for¬ 
est. What was to be done about it ? 

Ah, just then the sun came out. That is 
the joke about an April day. Even if it does 
rain, it is just as likely to shine. The fairy 
looked up at the breaking clouds through her 
wet eyes and she discovered that she could not 
see the sunshine well unless she stopped cry¬ 
ing. So she did that, she stopped crying. And 
she hurried, smiling and laughing, to her 
young birch tree to see if it had seen the sun. 
She laid her hands on its odd little half leaves, 
smiling up into the branches, and suddenly 
they were new, green, whole leaves. 

Such a surprise! The fairy hurried to her 
crocus to tell it about the sun, and as soon as 
the flower saw the fairy’s smiling face it 


44 


FRIENDLY TALES 


opened wide to catch the sunshine of her smile 
as well as that of the sky. Then she heard a 
merry laugh back of her. It was her cousin, 
the elf, and he had a young robin with him who 
wanted to give the fairy a short ride on his 
wings. When a fairy laughs, of course an elf 
must laugh too, just as one child who is happy 
helps another’s happiness. So everything was 
all right again. 

And after that all the other fairies just 
wished that they had birthdays in April. You 
see it gave them a chance to be happy and 
cheerful when it was raining. The April fairy 
had set the fashion, just as April herself does 
with her sunshine following the rain. 


HOW DAISY CHAINS CAME 


O NCE upon a time, in the Land of Never- 
Was-But-Might-Have-Been, the folk 
who lived there, all fairies by the way, woke 
up one summer morning to a surprise. A field 
that had been only green before was covered 
with the prettiest flowers, whose heads looked 
like the heads of fairy children with yellow 
hair and frilled white bonnets. These flowers 
covered the green field. They were large 
enough to serve for fairy sunshades. They 
were bright enough to be fairy gold. Their 
white petals might have come from the snowy 
soap-suds and the tiny ironing board of the 
fairy laundress who hung her washing on the 
morning cobwebs. There was only one thing 
that might have been changed about these 
flowers. They grew in but one meadow, and 
to be properly shared and loved all the fairies 
should have been able to see and touch them. 
And the fairies were busy and they lived far 
apart. 

The fairy laundress, gathering wee frocks 


46 


FRIENDLY TALES 


and lace skirts from the webs of the meadow 
grass, stopped and looked at these pretty new 
flowers. She sighed. “How the fairy who 
churns the butter for the buttercups would love 
some of these blossoms!” she said, “but I 
can’t go any farther than her dairy with a 
wreath of them or my clothes will be too dry to 
iron smoothly.” 

With this, the fairy laundress wove a beau¬ 
tiful garland of the new yellow and white 
flowers and hurried to a far field where the 
fairy who puts butter in the buttercups was 
skimming the cream from her tiny tin pans. 

“Just the color of new butter!” said the 
fairy. “Thank you so much! And how the 
fairy who puts pennies in the shepherds’ 
purses would enjoy having a wreath of them 
too,” but before she had finished speaking the 
fairy laundress was halfway home again. 
Every day was washday with her, on account 
of the fairy children wearing only white and 
lace. 

“I might go over to her bank, I suppose, 
with a wreath,” said the buttercup fairy, “but 
no farther, on account of my churning and 
the children needing so many buttercups this 
summer.” So she divided hers and wove an- 


HOW DAISY CHAINS CAME 47 

other beautiful garland of the yellow and 
white flowers. Then she hurried to the mossy 
bank where the fairy who fills the shepherds’ 
purses, those tiny, green, three-cornered 
purses that grow in the summer time, was at 
her work of making bright pennies. 

“How pretty! Just the color of my 
pennies!” said the fairy as she saw the long 
wreath. “I do thank you so much, and I 
wish I could show it to the fairy who rings the 
bluebells. I heard her just this morning tun¬ 
ing them for the midsummer chimes. I may 
be able to get over to her hill before night.” 

So the fairy who made pennies had a busy 
time filling purses and then, later, she divided 
her garland and made still a third one which 
she carried through the pretty lanes of grass 
and moss until she came to the bluebell hill 
and the fairy who could make the bluebells 
chime. 

The bluebell fairy was delighted with her 
flowers. “I will make up a song about 
them,” she told the fairy of the shepherds’ 
purses, “and when I am able to play it on my 
chime of bluebells I will share these new yel¬ 
low and white flowers with the fairy who makes 
cheeses. She is so busy that she hardly ever 



48 


FRIENDLY TALES 


is able to get away from her field to see the 
sights.” 

It was late in the afternoon when the blue¬ 
bell fairy was able to divide her garland and 
make still another one which she took in great 
haste to the fairy of the little green cheeses 
which are so good to eat in the summer time. 
“She delivers her cheeses at sunset,” said the 
bluebell fairy to herself. ‘ ‘ I mustn ’t be late. ’ ’ 

As it happened, she was just in time. The 
cheese fairy, her small grass basket on her 
arm, was just starting out, but she nearly 
dropped all the hard little green cheeses in 
delight at the flowers. 

“How pretty!” she exclaimed, “but much 
too beautiful to be left here among my curds. 
I shall just take along a few of these yellow 
and white flowers to one of my customers who 
will be so pleased. You see she washes and 
irons the fairy children’s dresses, and I take 
her a cheese every midsummer night for her 
supper.” 

Of course the bluebell fairy did not know 
that the first garland had started from the 
kind hands of the fairy wash-lady. Neither 
did the fairy who made cheeses. The whole 
thing would have been a joke when it was 


HOW DAISY CHAINS CAME 


49 


found out if something strange had not hap¬ 
pened. 

The cheese fairy carried the slender rope 
of the new yellow and white flowers to the 
busy, tired fairy wash-lady, and a wonderful 
thing came to pass. It wasn’t a garland. It 
was a chain of flowers. As each fairy had put 
part of her garland into another one for some 
other fairy, all the flowers had joined them¬ 
selves into one long chain. It made a circle 
from that fairy wash-lady all the way back to 
her again, a nice, long daisy chain. 

So the first daisy chain was made in the land 
of Never-Was-But-Might-Have-Been and the 
children, through love of one another, have 
been winding and sharing daisy chains ever 
since then. 


THE DWARF’S GREAT ADVENTURE 


H E was the Littlest Dwarf of all the 
valley that lay at the foot of the moun¬ 
tain. Some of the dwarfs grew a bit from 
year to year, but the Littlest Dwarf never 
grew at all. He stayed just the same, little 
and bent and weak. That was why all the 
other dwarfs warned him when he told them 
he was starting out on an adventure. 

“I am going to the top of the mountain to 
see the giants,” he said. 

“You will never get there,” the other 
dwarfs told him. “Look at yourself, and 
think it over.” 

“But I have never seen a giant,” he said, 
“and I want to.” 

Neither had any of the dwarfs of the valley 
seen a giant, but they knew they lived at the 
top of the mountain, for they had heard their 
rumbling voices, and the tread of their great 
feet, and the crash of their clubs whenever 
there was a thunder storm rolling down into 

50 




THE DWARFS GREAT ADVENTURE 51 

the valley. So they were sure that the giants 
would eat up the Littlest Dwarf, and they all 
took new pocket handkerchiefs in which to 
cry when they saw him off one day not long 
after that. And they all brought their dear¬ 
est things to give him for his journey. 

The dwarf who did nothing but play all the 
days of the week as well as Saturday, gave 
the Littlest Dwarf a bag of marbles made of 
turquoises, rubies and jade. And he also 
gave him a marble board cut from rosewood 
and polished until it shone like the sun. 

The dwarf who thought only of food all 
the days of the week as well as Saturday and 
Sunday, gave the Littlest Dwarf a basket of 
good things to eat, sandwiches filled with 
candied peppermint leaves, jars of wild honey, 
sticks of rock candy, and a pot of wild straw¬ 
berry jam. 

The dwarf who never did anything for him¬ 
self all the days of the week, and all the weeks 
of the month, and all the months of the year, 
gave the Littlest Dwarf a magic staff. He 
could stick it in the ground, jump astride it, 
and off he would gallop without using his little 
legs at all. He was very well fixed for his 
adventure, and he started up the mountain 



52 


FRIENDLY TALES 


with the sobs of the other dwarfs in his ears 
and their calls. 

“Don’t go as far as the top. The giants 
will surely eat you!” 

So the Littlest Dwarf, who had lived all his 
life in the valley and done the things that the 
other dwarfs did, enjoyed his first day very 
much. He ate a stick of candy first, then the 
whole jar of wild strawberry jam, and then 
he took a nap. His nap lasted until the sun 
was very high the next day, and he was far 
from the valley, but farther from the top of 
the mountain. 

“Dear me,” thought the Littlest Dwarf, 
“this will never do. Sweets are all very well 
for valley dwarfs, but not on a journey like 
this.” So he left the rest of the rock candy, 
the honey, and the filling of the sandwiches 
in the cave of some bear cubs, for a surprise, 
and he ate only the bread that day. 

“Off we go!” he said, hopping astride his 
magic staff. And off he went, jumping, and 
bumping, and careering up the mountain side 
so fast that he was all bumps himself, and 
lame too, when he stopped for the night. 
He was lame in the morning as well. “I 
will trust to my own legs after this,” he 


THE DWARF’S GREAT ADVENTURE 


53 


thought as he stuck the staff in the earth at 
the side of the road. And he was very much 
surprised to see how fast he could climb, and 
how far he went without it. He made such 
good progress that he decided to take a day 
off for play. The top of the mountain was 
in sight now. 

How the marbles sparkled and rolled in the 
sun, blue, and red, and green! And they 
dropped so easily into the holes in the rose¬ 
wood board. The Littlest Dwarf played with 
them all that day, and another day as well. 
When he stopped playing, he expected to 
reach the top of the mountain in a short time. 
But where was the top of the mountain ? He 
could not see it as he had seen it before. 

“No more play for this Dwarf!” he said 
to himself, “it is a waste of time when one is 
trying to finish an adventure. I will just 
keep these marbles to give the giants if they 
don’t eat me. I may be able to strike a bar¬ 
gain with them.” And with this, the Lit¬ 
tlest Dwarf set off again, and climbed, and 
climbed, and climbed, and he came to the top 
of the mountain. 

He was rather scared to see so many giants, 
so huge, and all leaving whatever they were 


54 


FRIENDLY TALES 


doing to come to meet him. Some had been 
building with fine, smooth stone that other 
giants quarried. Some had been trimming 
the trees and laying out wide paths. Others 
were making beautiful gardens. The giants 
were building a beautiful city up there, and 
they seemed friendly, harmless creatures. 

The Littlest Dwarf took his turquoise, and 
ruby, and jade marbles from his pocket, and 
held them out. His whole body was trem¬ 
bling, but he hoped it did not show. “I never 
saw a giant; that is why I came up,” he told 
them. “I can give you some marbles. I’ll 
go right home if you say so.” 

The giants laughed. It was the biggest 
chuckle you ever heard. 

“He says he will go home,” they told one 
to another, “he doesn’t know that he is home. 
He doesn’t know that he is a giant himself, a 
fine, new giant!” 

And that was true. That was what had 
happened to the Littlest Dwarf, who had 
given up so many things that he liked, candied 
peppermint leaves, and honey, and candy 
sticks, and a magic staff, and his play, to have 
a great adventure. He had changed from 
the Littlest Dwarf to a fine, new Giant. 


THE BROWNIE WHO WANTED 

THE MOON 


H E was one of the most fortunate of them 
all, for his grandfather had left him 
a fine little farm, hut was he happy? No, he 
was not. Any of the brownies, going by his 
house on their way to work and then home in 
the evening, could have told you how down¬ 
hearted he was. He wanted the moon. He 
didn’t see why his grandfather, who had been 
one of the oldest and most wealthy of the 
brownies, could not have left him the moon 
as well as the little farm. 

And the Brownie-Who-Wanted-The-Moon 
just sat there on his dusty door sill with his 
chin on his knees and cried for it. 

“Why do you want the moon?” asked a 
wood-cutter brownie, passing by one day. 

“I want the moon because it is yellow,” 
said the Brownie. 

“Well, that is a cheerful color,” said the 
other. “Here, I will give you one of my 
sharp little axes and with it you can cut away 

55 


56 


FRIENDLY TALES 


the dead branches in your orchard. Then you 
will be able to see the yellow moon better.’’ 

And not long after that a road-building 
brownie passed by the neglected farm of the 
Brownie-Who-Wanted-The-Moon. There he 
was, leaning sadly on his broken gate. 

“Why do you want the moon*?” asked the 
road-building brownie, for all the brownies 
for miles around knew of this strange wish. 

“I want the moon because it is so large and 
round,” said the Brownie. 

“Like the biggest ball in the world,” said 
the other. “Yes, I know how you feel; but 
the moon is fastened in its place. Here,” he 
went on kindly, for all brownies are kind. 
“I will give you my very best shovel and with 
it you can clear away all that rubbish in your 
garden, making a green place in which to sit 
evenings and look at the moon.” 

That same spring a brownie who had a 
large truck farm went by, and there sat the 
Brownie-Who-Wanted-The-Moon by the side 
of the road in front of his weedy little farm, 
still crying. 

“Why do you want the moon?” asked the 
brownie, for he was almost too tired when 


THE BROWNIE WHO WANTED THE MOON 57 

night came to look up at it. All day long he 
planted, and raked, and hoed. 

“I want to hold the moon in my hands and 
feel how smooth and polished it is,” said the 
Brownie. 

The brownie who had a truck farm could 
think of nothing to say in answer to this 
strange wish, but he took a handful of pretty 
seeds from the pocket in his jacket. “You 
may have all these for your very own,” he 
said. “I know of nothing smoother or pleas¬ 
anter to feel of in the spring than all the dif¬ 
ferent seeds I plant.’’ 

With that he gave the Brownie some large, 
round, smooth seeds and went on his way, for 
all brownies are busy. Whether we see them 
or not, it is said that a great deal of the work 
of the world is done by them. 

But after that, all during the spring and 
all the long, bright summer, no one passed the 
farm where the Brownie-Who-Wanted-The- 
Moon lived. And that was because the others 
did not want to hear him crying and complain¬ 
ing. They thought they heard him sighing 
for the moon whenever the wind sighed in the 
trees. They thought they heard him grum- 


58 


FRIENDLY TALES 


bling for the moon whenever Grandfather 
Bullfrog grumbled down in the bog. They 
thought they heard him crying for the moon 
whenever Whip-poor-Will cried at sunset. 
That is what happens when anyone is like the 
Brownie-Who-Wanted-The-Moon. He is let 
alone. 

Then the fall came, and it was a very busy 
time for the brownies. They were helping the 
squirrels to get in their harvest of nuts, and 
gathering loads of leaves to make winter bed- 
quilts, and taking short rides on the backs of 
the wild geese. But one of the frostiest, mer¬ 
riest days of the whole fall, the brownie who 
was a wood-cutter heard a bird song. He 
stopped his work to listen to it. 

“This must be a mistake,” he said. “No 
bird who sings like that is here now. It is 
a thrush, and all the thrushes have gone 
away.” 

“The song comes from this direction,” said 
the Brownie-who-was-a-Road-Builder. 4 ‘ Let 
us follow it.” 

“Why, the thrush is singing back of 
the house where that complaining Brownie- 
Who-Wants-The-Moon lives!” exclaimed the 
brownie who owned a truck farm. “And look 


THE BROWNIE WHO WANTED THE MOON 59 

at his farm! It seems to be as well kept as 
it was in his grandfather’s time.” 

This was true. The orchard trees were 
trimmed, the garden was weeded and growing, 
and from somewhere came that pretty bird 
song. No, it was the Brownie himself sing¬ 
ing. He came around to meet them now and 
they heard him. 

“Why do you sing?” they asked him. 

“Because I have the moon,” he told them. 

Then, because they looked surprised, he led 
them around to the end of his little cornfield. 
“There it is,” he told them, “yellow, and big, 
and round, and smooth. I told you I wouldn’t 
be happy until I had it.” 

The brownies all nudged each other, and 
stuffed their little pocket handkerchiefs in 
their mouths to keep from laughing. They 
wanted him to keep on being happy, but his 
moon was a great big pumpkin he had raised 
all by himself. 

“It took hard work, but I got it!” he told 
them, strutting about a little because he was 
so proud. “Of course there is a smaller one 
still up in the sky, but I never bother to think 
of it. This moon I raised myself.” 

Then the brownies took their pocket hand- 


60 


FRIENDLY TALES 


kerchiefs out of their mouths, for they knew 
there was really nothing to laugh at. A 
pumpkin, or a moon, what difference did it 
make what he called it? It was theirs too, 
the fruit of their gifts of tools and seeds. So 
yellow, and big, and round, and smooth! 


THE GIANT WHO CRACKED 
HIS HEART 

O NCE upon a time there was a family of 
Giants who lived in the land of Let’s 
Pretend, and they had a little boy, who was 
really a big one, being a Giant-Boy, who was 
not afraid of anything in the world. 

He was so strong that he could play marbles 
with boulders. He was so brave that no other 
Giant-Boy had ever been able to make him cry 
in a fight. And he was so plucky that he did 
not mind in the least when the others laughed 
at him because he had a Pig-widgeon for his 
very best friend. 

No one could understand why the Giant-Boy 

loved the Pig-widgeon as much as he did, for 

he was rather a grasping, disagreeable sort of 

a little fellow, spending his days in digging 

under roots and rocks and then hiding and 

hoarding any bright metals or stones that he 

might have found. But the Giant-Boy used 

to look for the Pig-widgeon almost every day, 

61 


62 


FRIENDLY TALES 


creeping carefully through the woods on his 
hands and knees, and trying to make his gruff 
voice soft as he called for his friend to come 
out and play. 

When he found him, the Giant-Boy would 
set the Pig-widgeon on the tip of his little 
finger and run with him over the hills and 
back again. It was like a ride on the steeple¬ 
chase for the Pig-widgeon. Or the Giant-Boy 
would put him on a leaf and blow him way 
up in the air, catching him safely when he 
drifted down. It was like a ride in an air¬ 
ship for the Pig-widgeon. Then the Giant- 
Boy would put him back on the ground and 
just sit and look at him, thinking how nice 
it must seem to be so old, and so small, and 
able to dig so well. 

After a while the Giant-Boy was ten years 
old, and it was time, according to the custom 
of the country, for him to go out and test his 
courage and if he came home as brave as he 
started, his Giant-Father would give him a 
beautiful wooded mountain to be his inheri¬ 
tance. His Giant-Mother gave him several 
bushels of apples and five hundred sandwiches 
and a barrel of milk to carry with him on his 
journey, and when those were gone, she told 


THE GIANT WHO CRACKED HIS HEART 63 

him, the Giants on the way would be glad 
to give him food and shelter. 

So the Giant-Boy started out with his heart 
full of courage, but he had gone only a little 
way when he met a storm. It was a black, 
terrifying storm that came rumbling down 
from the sky and crashing over the hills. It 
brought fire and thunderbolts with it, and it 
seemed to shake the whole earth. Going into 
such a storm was like marching alone into an 
advancing army, but the Giant-Boy did it. 
And he was soon safely through the storm, 
just by facing it. 

Then the Giant-Boy met a bear. It was a 
giant bear, larger than he, and with a very 
loud growl, and it came out from behind a 
tree when he was least expecting it. It came 
straight down the path toward him with its 
great mouth wide open. But the Giant-Boy 
did not turn, for he had so much courage in 
his heart. The bear stopped and looked at 
him, and then trotted along beside him like 
a dog. The Giant-Boy had tamed it by not 
running away. 

So he went on and he met all kinds of fear¬ 
some things, the dark, and strangers, and 
larger giants, and unknown places, and new 




64 


FRIENDLY TALES 


kinds of hard work, bravely. He grew older 
and nearer to being a Giant-Man before be 
could turn borne again. But wben be did 
come borne, be entered tbe forest first. And 
there was bis old friend, tbe Pig-widgeon, dig¬ 
ging beside a stream. 

4 4 Here I am! Are you not glad to see me ? ’ ’ 
tbe Giant called as be stepped across the 
stream with one stride. 

44 Let me alone. I think I’ve struck gold,” 
tbe Pig-widgeon said crossly. Then, without 
looking up, be threw a pebble at tbe Giant. 
It bit tbe Giant’s heart and be beard a loud 
crack. 

44 Now I have lost my inheritance,” be said 
to himself as be came home. 4 4 My strong 
heart is cracked!” 

44 How did that happen?” bis Giant-Father 
asked when be told him about it. 

44 1 met and conquered storms and wild 
beasts and all kinds of dangers,” tbe Giant 
answered, 4 4 but my friend, the Pig-widgeon, 
threw a pebble at me and it bit my heart.” 

4 4 Ob, I should have told you about that be¬ 
fore you started out,” bis Giant-Father said, 
taking down a big book of rules that could be 


THE GIANT WHO CRACKED HIS HEART 


65 


used in any land as well as the land of Let’s 
Pretend. He read from it; 

4 4 Only those who are themselves great can 
hurt our hearts.” 

44 That doesn’t count against any child of a 
giant,” he said. 44 It only counts against the 
Pig-widgeon. ” 

So the Giant was given a beautiful wooded 
mountain for his inheritance, and the crack in 
his heart grew together after a while. As for 
the Pig-widgeon, he was always a little, lonely 
creature and never grew up to be anything at 
all. 




THE LAZY GIANT 


O NCE upon a time, so long ago that any¬ 
thing strange might have happened, 
there was a Lazy Giant. He was as tall as 
a tree, as strong as a mountain and as straight 
as a bean-pole. He was very fond of eating 
the huge, crusty loaves of good wheat bread 
which the Baker Giants made. He could 
finish a peck of rosy apples in an afternoon. 
He was most happy if he could sit an entire 
afternoon basking in the sunshine on the door¬ 
step of one of the fine, strong stone cottages 
that the Builder Giants made so well. But he 
never had a wish to help with the work of this 
giants’ village. His father and his grand¬ 
father had been among the hardest workers of 
the giants, but the Lazy Giant lived by the 
work of others. 

He was a very Lazy Giant, and that was all 
there was to it. 

That is, it was all there was to it until one 

spring in the giants’ country when there was 

66 


THE LAZY GIANT 


67 


ever so much to be done. There were sev¬ 
eral new fields to be ploughed. The giants 
had decided to build themselves a great stone 
house which would be their Common House, 
where they might have games and parties and 
talk over things altogether. When this was 
done, there would be bushels and bushels of 
wheat to be ground. 

“What shall we do about the Lazy Giant?” 
they asked themselves. 

“We must make him work,” they decided. 

So the other giants tried to think of ways 
to make the Lazy Giant share in the work of 
that village, and at last they hit upon a plan to 
make him plough. The morning when the 
ploughing began they did not stop at the 
house of the Lazy Giant with a basket of 
loaves of bread as usual. 

“We will starve him into doing his share,” 
they said. 

But the Lazy Giant did not appear in the 
cornfield. Late in the afternoon they found 
him asleep on his doorstep. He had happened 
to have some sponge cake saved in his pantry 
and he had eaten that. 

Well, the giants tried to think of another 
way to make the Lazy Giant work, for they 


68 


FRIENDLY TALES 


needed his help in the building of their Com¬ 
mon House. 

“We will smoke him out of his own house,” 
they said. 

So they built a fire of green wood and it 
smoked most dreadfully. But several of the 
giants who passed by with their loads of stone 
that afternoon saw the Lazy Giant fast asleep 
on his doorstep with his largest pocket hand¬ 
kerchief spread over his face. He had not 
been bothered by the smoke in the least. 

Last, they tried to make the Lazy Giant go 
down to the brook where the mill stood and 
carry bags of wheat to be ground. They suc¬ 
ceeded in getting him as far as the bank of the 
brook with one bag of corn, but there he set 
it down for some other giant to carry on. The 
Lazy Giant loved the brook. It talked with 
him when no one else would. He liked the 
brook’s still, small voice and the merry way it 
had of singing among its pebbles. 

This brook had two voices, a deep, low one 
as it sang among its rocks and a high, clear one 
as it sang among its pebbles. If you listen 
well you may always hear these voices, for 
every brook has them. The Lazy Giant threw 


THE LAZY GIANT 


69 


himself down on the moss of the bank and 
spoke to his friend. 

“What is the news of the hills and the 
forest?” he asked. “Speak to me, Little 
Brook !” 

But it was the deep, low voice of the brook 
that replied to the Lazy Giant. 

“No news for you; I have work to do!” said 
the brook as it ran along between its banks 
giving the tree roots and the flower roots and 
the grain roots a drink as it flowed. The 
Lazy Giant listened, for he understood the 
voice of the brook better than anyone else did. 
The other giants could shout right in his ears 
and he would pretend that he was deaf, but he 
could hear the smallest words of his brook. 
That night when he went home he was un- 
happy because the brook had not talked with 
him. 

“But that will all be changed tomorrow,” 
he said to himself. 

It was not changed. The Lazy Giant went 
down to the brook bright and early the next 
day with the nicest little rustic bridge for it 
which he had put together with branches on 
the way. He could use his hands very well 


TO 


FRIENDLY TALES 


if he wished and he thought that the brook 
would like the rustic bridge. But the brook 
paid not the least attention to it. It made a 
great rushing and tumbling with its waters 
and broke up the bridge with some of its rocks 
which it tossed at the feet of the Lazy Giant. 

“No time for you. There is building to 
do,” sang the brook as it hurried over its 
rocks and stones, polishing them smooth for 
making walls and houses. The Lazy Giant 
picked up one of the stones and looked at it. 
It was a pretty bit of rock, smooth and 
colored and right for making a part of the 
fireplace in the giants’ Common House. The 
Lazy Giant carried the stone all the way home 
with him and put it with the pile which the 
giants had gathered for their building. 

He hoped the next day that things would be 
better, that his friend, the brook, would stop 
long enough to tell him the news, but it did 
not. When he asked it to, the brook spoke 
to him in its still, small way. 

“No news for you. There is grinding to 
do, ’ ’ said the brook, going right past the Lazy 
Giant toward the mill. The Lazy Giant fol¬ 
lowed along the bank and when he came to the 
mill there was the brook, come before him, and 


THE LAZY GIANT 


71 


working as hard as it could to turn the great 
wheel of the mill. The Lazy Giant watched 
the busy brook and then he went home. He 
sat down on his doorstep and thought, and 
then thought some more. 

Shortly after that, a company of neighbor¬ 
ing giants came to that village. They had 
heard that a Lazy Giant lived there and they 
wanted to see him. They had a desire to see 
so curious a person. 

But all they saw was a Busy Giant, a giant 
with his coat off and his sleeves rolled up, and 
ploughing deeper and carrying heavier bags 
of grain and larger stones for building than 
any of the rest. 

“ Where is your Lazy Giant V J asked the 
visitors. 

“Oh, we have none. We all work,” the 
others said. 

And that was true, for the Lazy Giant who 
couldn’t be starved or smoked out of his 
house, or made to fetch and carry, had lis¬ 
tened to the still, small voice of his friend, the 
brook. 



THE GNOME’S WISH 

H E was a little old Gnome wlio lived deep 
down in the roots of a little old tree in 
the forest of Long-Ago. He was as wrinkled 
as the trunk of his tree, and his coat was as 
ragged as the bark, and his voice was as harsh 
as the wind in the branches; but, oh, his kind 
little heart! This Gnome’s heart was as 
warm as fire and as glowing with love as a 
fire glows with flame. Nobody knew the 
secret of the Gnome’s heart but he had one. 
He wanted to do something fine and useful 
for the children who walked through the forest 
and played right at his doorstep, although 
they did not know that he sat there, cross- 
legged, smiling up at them. 

And one wish of the Gnome was that his 
tree might bear flowers in the spring for the 
children, so he talked it over with the Dryads 
of the Apple and Hawthorne trees who know 
all about flowers from the buds to the way of 
painting the petals. 


72 




THE GNOME’S WISH 


73 


“ We can tell you how to make your little old 
tree blossom, ” the Dryads told him, giving 
him their advice. 

So the Gnome brought water for his tree 
and caught as many sunbeams as he could, and 
expected it to blossom in the spring. But, 
dear me, did the Gnome’s tree have flowers'? 
No, indeed, not even a bud. 

But the Gnome went right on wishing that 
he might do something for the forest children, 
and he wished very much that his tree might 
bear nuts. He talked this over with the 
Brownies who cultivate the Chestnut and the 
Hickory trees and then drop down the nuts in 
the fall for the Squirrels to gather. The 
Brownies know all about nut trees, and they 
told the Gnome just what to do to make his 
little old tree bear nuts. 

So the Gnome trimmed his tree and grafted 
on a branch from a Chestnut tree and waited 
all summer to see what would happen. But, 
dear me, did the Gnome’s tree bear chestnuts'? 
No, indeed, not a single nut. 

Still the Gnome was not going to give up, 
and he went to the Elves who do not feel the 
cold, but live all winter in the Evergreens so 
as to be there for Christmas. They know all 


74 


FRIENDLY TALES 


about what a tree must do in order to stay 
green through the cold and bear lights and 
gifts for the children. 

“You must not let the leaves drop oft your 
little old tree,” the Elves told the Gnome. 
“Then it may turn into an Evergreen.” 

So the Gnome went right to work on the 
leaves of his tree. Some of them he tied 
tightly to the branches with bits of vine, and 
others he stuck on by their stems with pitch, 
and then he waited to see his tree turn into 
an Evergreen. But, dear me, did the 
Gnome’s tree stay green for Christmas^ No, 
it did not. It grew browner and drier and 
more shriveled with every cold day. 

Then the Gnome grew discouraged, and he 
crawled into his house at the roots of the tree 
and he grew older, and browner, and more 
wrinkled too. He hid there, away from the 
other little people of the forest, for years, 
deep down in the earth. But all the time the 
Gnome’s little heart still glowed with his love 
for the children and he still wished that he 
might do something for them. 

One day, when the forest of Long-Ago had 
become a place of Today, the Gnome felt a 
great hammering at the door of his tree house 


THE GNOME’S WISH 


75 


way down there in the earth. Then he felt 
a chopping at the roots and a kind of a gen¬ 
eral breaking np of everything, his tree and 
all. Then he felt that he was being taken 
away somewhere, he did not know just where, 
and his only thought was how old and dirty 
he was. He couldn’t remember when he had 
felt the rain or dipped himself in a brook. 

“ Suppose I were to me^t those nice forest 
children!” thought the little old Gnome. 
“How they would run away from me, making 
the kind of appearance I do now! I should 
like to be able to tell them that I was once a 
good citizen of the woods.” 

And presently what the Gnome dreaded 
happened. He could hear the voices and 
laughter of children, in a home, out of the 
cold. 

“How bright! How beautiful! How 
warm!” the children were saying, and there 
was a sound of their dancing feet and a 
pleasant crackling sound in the fireplace. A 
teakettle began to sing. The wind howled 
outside but it could not get in the house, even 
when it walked high among the chimneys. 

The little old Gnome could stand it no 
longer. “Here I am, with a bright, warm 


76 


FRIENDLY TALES 


heart for you, ’ ’ he tried to call to the children. 
“My coat is black and my face is dirty but 
only look at my heart, I beg of you!” 

Then a strange thing happened. The Lit- 
tlest Child, who could always see more than 
the others in the fire, pointed to the Gnome. 
He knew she was pointing to him, for he had 
perched himself right up on top of the coals. 

“See the bright little Gnome,” shouted the 
Littlest Child, “all dressed in scarlet and wav¬ 
ing his hand to us from the flames of the fire!” 

Then the other children saw him too, and 
he was ever so happy. He balanced himself 
on the tips of his tiny red shoes and tossed his 
tiny red cap in the air, and sang with the 
crackling fire and the bubbling teakettle as 
long as the fire burned. 

For the little old Gnome and his little old 
tree had come up from the earth in coal, even 
more blessed than blossoms, or nuts, or greens. 


HOW THE PIXY KEPT WARM 


W HO is a Pixy ? 

Well, all one can truly say about 
him is that he is as old as the Forest, and as 
hard a worker as the Brownies are. It is said 
that the smoothest pebbles are polished for 
children’s play, and the prettiest acorn tea- 
sets laid out on the moss by his family. The 
Pixy is about the size of an elf, he is the friend 
of all the little wild creatures in the Forest, 
and he must belong to the tribe of the fairies 
for one never sees him. The rest about him 
is the reason for this story. 

The Pixy was cold, for winter had come on 
and he had no home. Last winter he had kept 
safe and warm in a little house in the hollow 
pine tree, near the roots where it was snug 
and cozy. But this year the Hare had found 
the pine tree house first, and no Pixy would 
ever turn a neighbor out into the cold even if 
he were in his own house. 

The snow fell, and fell, and fell. The wind 
blew, and blew, and blew. The Pixy hopped 



78 


FRIENDLY TALES 


around on the tips of his tiny pointed shoes 
in the paths of the Forest and swung his little 
arms to keep warm but it was of no use. His 
long white beard froze into a lot of white ici¬ 
cles, and the wind blew up the sleeves and in 
through the pockets of his little green jacket 
until he was almost too stiff to hop. 

“This will never do,” said the Pixy to him¬ 
self. “I shall have to go to town and see if 
one of the children will not take me in to sleep 
with the house cat beside the stove until spring 
comes.” 

So the cold Pixy skipped to town one eve¬ 
ning on the tips of his toes when it was dark 
enough for no one to see him, but not bedtime 
yet for the children. He called through the 
keyhole of one house. Peeping in, he could 
see a green tree from his Forest standing in 
the middle of the room, all trimmed with 
colored balls and sticks of candy. 

“This is the house for me,” said the Pixy. 
“That is one of my trees. I can tell the chil¬ 
dren stories about it.” 

But the louder the Pixy called through the 
keyhole, the more merrily did the children 
dance and sing about the tree. They thought 
that the Pixy’s small, squeaky voice was the 


HOW THE PIXY KEPT WARM 79 

shrill wind calling through the keyhole and 
so he had to go on to another house. 

“This is the house for me,” he said as he 
saw a green wreath with scarlet berries, the 
green of the Pine and the red of the Holly 
that were to be found nowhere except in his 
Forest. “They are expecting me, for here is 
a crown they have made for me,” and he 
tapped with his fingers on the window pane. 

“How cold it is!” the children said, peering 
out into the evening but not seeing the Pixy 
sitting there on the ledge. “The wind is 
blowing the twigs against the window pane.” 
And then they went to bed, and the Pixy had 
to go on. 

“All the better for me,” chuckled the Pixy, 
shivering but chuckling to himself, for he was 
never anything but cheerful. “The fact is 
that I have not as yet found the right house. 
When I do find it, the children will be outside 
waiting for me. Why, here it is!” 

Yes, there right in front of him was a warm, 
bright house, and at the door stood two chil¬ 
dren with an empty basket between them. 

“Not a gift left,” said the boy. 

“How pleased they will be in the morning 
when they open their gifts,” said the girl. 


80 


FRIENDLY TALES 


“They are back from the Forest. They 
have been leaving us presents, ” said the Pixy, 
not knowing that the children had been only 
to their friends’ homes. “Here I am, come 
to make the winter short for you, ’ ’ he called. 

“It is so cold that you can hear the frost 
snapping,” said the boy. 

“Yes, we must go right in,” said the girl. 
And that was what they did, leaving the Pixy 
on the wrong side of the door. It was not 
their fault that he started back to the Forest. 
They had not seen him. 

So the Pixy skipped back to the Forest on 
the tips of his toes, disappointed, but think¬ 
ing, 

“I could trim one of my trees like that,” he 
said. So the Pixy hung snow stars and di¬ 
amond icicles on one of his prettiest and lit- 
tlest pine trees. Then he dug down under the 
snow with his small hands for the berries 
the winter birds love and the juicy twigs that 
the little animals in fur love, and he hung 
these on the branches of the tree. 

“I could make a crown for myself like the 
one I saw,” he thought. So the Pixy hopped 
and jumped about the Forest, finding the 


HOW THE PIXY KEPT WARM 81 

greenest creeping Pine and the reddest Holly; 
berries and he made a beautiful wreath. 

“It is too nice for me,” he said when he 
finished it, “I will leave it here in the path to 
surprise some child who comes through gath¬ 
ering fagots in the morning. Now for some 
presents!” 

Creeping softly to the roots of his old pine 
tree house so as not to awake the sleepy Hare, 
the Pixy filled his little rush basket with his 
best treasures, the things he wanted to keep. 
There was his fat acorn tea-pot, the smooth 
pink pebbles, the polished snail shells, the 
long necklace made of pine needles, the little 
winter bouquets he had made of wintergreen 
berries and everlasting flowers. With his 
basket filled with these, the Pixy went again 
to town, leaving a present from the Forest at 
the door of each house where he knew there 
was a child. 

It was almost morning when he finished. 
The sun, in a cloak of pink and gold, was be¬ 
ginning to shine and the Pixy hurried back 
with his empty basket to the Forest. He met 
the Hare, fat and full after breakfasting from 
the Pixy’s tree. He was on his way to an- 


i 


82 


FRIENDLY TALES 


other, larger hole, so the Pixy’s house would 
be his again. The wreath he had made was 
gone. From the town came the sound of 
church bells. 

And the Pixy felt suddenly young, and as 
warm as if he had been sitting beside a fire. 



FOUR-LEGGED NEIGHBORS AND 
SOME WITH WINGS 





BUNNY BOBTAIL BUILDS A EOAD 


R ED-TAIL, the old fox, sniffed the air. 

Then he looked sharply down at the 
ground of the Woods Patch where he lived. 
It was a beautiful, sunshiny June day but 
Bed-Tail, the old fox, had a wicked thought 
in his head. He was going to hunt for 
Bunny Bobtail, the little wild rabbit, and 
when he found him Red-Tail was going to 
chase Bunny Bobtail! 

Red-Tail knew that Bunny had no real 
home. The beavers live in the ponds and the 
squirrels live in the trees. The wee wild mice 
sometimes live in empty birds’ nests, but 
Bunny lives on the road with the sky for his 
roof. And Bunny builds his own roads so 
that he can run along them if he is chased. 
Red-Tail could tell, just by looking at the 
ground there in the Woods Patch, that Bunny 
had been busy building a new road that very 
day. 

Bunny Bobtail’s road started at the swamp 

85 


86 


FRIENDLY TALES 


and it was about five inches wide, just the 
right width for a brownie or a gnome! 
Bunny had cleared his little road by cutting 
down the bushes and weed stumps close to the 
ground and then he had pounded it down hard 
with his back feet. There were his small foot¬ 
prints in it; Red-Tail could see them, so he 
started softly along beside the little road, 
trailing Bunny. 

“I’ll catch him in a minute now,” Red-Tail 
thought slyly. “What a stupid little rabbit 
he was to lay out such a plain, easy-to-follow 
road!” But just then Red-Tail changed his 
mind about this. Bunny Bobtail’s high road 
came to an end at his crossroads. The cross¬ 
roads went in two directions. Which of the 
two was the road he had taken ? 

You would not have known but Red-Tail did, 
because he is a very good guesser. He and all 
his family have been guessing about scents 
and trails in the Woods Patch for hundreds 
of years until guessing has come to be almost 
knowing with them. Red-Tail decided to 
turn to his left at the rabbit crossroads and 
he trotted along beside the little path that 
went deeper and deeper into the woods. Sud- 


BUNNY BOBTAIL BUILDS A ROAD 87 

denly, though, Red-Tail had to stop again. 
That was because the road stopped again, and 
this time there were four little rabbit roads, 
each one neatly cleared and about five inches 
wide, and all of them leading in different di¬ 
rections. Where these new crossroads began 
there was a little soft place in the moss where 
Bunny Bobtail had squatted down to look 
about and laugh all to himself when he was 
doing his June road building. 

It was a very good joke about those branch¬ 
ing roads. One led under the wild blueberry 
bushes and one led under an old hollow tree 
stump. One of the rabbit roads went as far 
as the brook and another went along close to 
the wintergreen bushes and the young sassa¬ 
fras shoots, Bunny Bobtail’s outdoor candy 
shop. After he had made all those four 
branching roads, and had squatted a little 
while to chuckle at his own joke, Bunny ran 
and hopped along each one, backwards and 
forwards, to leave a maze of footprints in 
each. As he looked at the roads, Red-Tail 
scratched his ear with his paw because he was 
puzzled. 

Almost anyone except a fox would have 


88 


FRIENDLY TALES 


chosen the wintergreen and sassafras road for 
trailing, but Red-Tail had more sense than 
that. 

“That stupid little rabbit thinks I can’t get 
under the wild blueberry bushes,” Red-Tail 
thought again slyly. “That’s the road he 
took and I’ll catch him in a minute now by 
jumping over the wild blueberry bushes.” 

So Red-Tail went softly along beside that 
road and when he reached the bushes, he gave 
a high leap and over he went. 

And what do you think happened? Red- 
Tail never went any farther, for he jumped 
right into a prickly clump of brambles that 
scratched him dreadfully. That was where 
Bunny Bobtail’s road ended, in the barbed 
wire entanglements of Woods Patch, the 
bramble bushes. 

When he was a very little rabbit, his Mother 
Nature had said to Bunny Bobtail, “I want 
you to be able to run and hop and find your 
meals all the year long, Bunny, so I am going 
to teach you how to build the safest roads in 
all the woods, the rabbit roads. And if you 
think that there is danger of an enemy follow¬ 
ing you and interfering with your marketing 
and your dinner, go under a bramble bush.” 


BUNNY BOBTAIL BUILDS A ROAD 


89 


So Bunny Bobtail spent all that happy June 
day eating peas and beans in Farmer Brown’s 
garden, while Bed-Tail limped home and had 
no dinner at all. It was all Red-Tail’s fault 
though. The brambles of the Woods Patch do 
not grow to hurt friends, but to stop enemies. 
Bunny Bobtail’s little roads are safe and free 
for those who follow them peacefully. 


BILLY COON BRAVES THE FIRE 


I T was dark on the edge of the Pine Woods 
as Billy Coon peered out of his front door 
in the old hollow tree. No one was in sight 
so he slid down the trunk and stood a minute, 
peering through his odd little black mask, to 
see if the path was safe. 

Billy was about to start out on an important 
business trip and a dangerous one too. He 
knew that the fire from a hunter’s torch might 
overtake him, even at night. He usually 
stayed at home in the daytime, but after the 
sun had set and the Pine Woods were full of 
shadows Billy knew that his chance had come 
to do his washing. 

He trotted cautiously along over the pine 
needles. His tail was ringed with black so 
that anyone could have recognized him, and 
the short black mask he always wore over his 
eyes was the plain mark of all his family. 
Suddenly the pine needles rustled. Billy stood 
still, his heart beating faster, as he waited to 
see what danger was approaching. He 

90 


BILLY COON BRAVES THE FIRE 91 

sniffed with his pointed nose and peered 
through the dark with his bright little eyes. 

But Billy was safe. It was only Green- 
Coat, the toad, who hid until dark under an 
old stump. Green-Coat’s work was that of 
cleaning the gardens of insects who hurt the 
vegetables and the fruits, but he had to do it 
at night. He hopped so slowly that he was 
sure to be stepped on in the daytime. He 
passed and Billy went on. 

Once in a while Billy could catch the light 
from a farmer’s lantern shining through the 
bushes on the edge of the clearing, and it 
glimmered like a torch. Then he hid in the 
brush until the light went into a barn door, 
but he did not think of turning back home. 
He was nearer the brook now and he started 
on again, hurrying, because it was growing 
late. 

On the other side of an oak tree he heard a 
rustling and scurrying that he did not under¬ 
stand. He knew that it might be someone 
waiting there in ambush for him. He 
stopped, hesitated, turned, and then decided 
to keep on being brave. So he crept boldly 
around the tree and what he saw took away 
his fear. 


92 


FRIENDLY TALES 


A number of fat, black, burying beetles were 
digging a hole in the soft loam to cover a field- 
mouse which an owl had killed. Their long, 
spade-like legs were making the earth fly as 
they worked, and when they finished they 
were going to hurry off in search of more 
work to do. They kept the woods as clean as 
they could. 

Billy scurried on. Now he came to the 
brook and he crept down the bank, putting his 
little gray paws deep in the cool water and 
looking on all sides for his fire danger. His 
paws gripped something, a fat fish! Billy 
pulled it out and laid it down beside him. 
Just then he saw a light. 

It was like a torch flickering on the edge of 
the swamp on the other side of the brook, now 
here, now there. It seemed to be coming 
nearer the little coon every second. He was 
tempted to leave his fish and run, but the 
thought came to him that comes to all coons 
from their Mother Nature’s wisdom: “I must 
be clean! I must be clean! ’ ’ 

So Billy dipped his fish in the water and 
took a bite of it, and then he dipped it in 
again. He washed each bite. Then he 
picked a bunch of brook cress, washing that, 


BILLY COON BRAVES THE FIRE 93 

too, before he ate it. Soon, Billy felt, the 
torch would be upon him and the hunt would 
begin, but when he looked up the light was 
gone. It had been only the Will-o-the-Wisp 
on the edge of the swamp. 

Billy Coon could start home through the 
Pine Woods in safety, and he was very, very 
happy. No matter in what danger he was, he 
and the rest of Mother Nature’s coon children 
knew that their washing must be done and out¬ 
doors kept as clean and healthful as possible. 


THE ADVENTURE OF THE HERD 

T HE ants’ herd must be taken to a new 
pasture, for the heat of the summer sun 
had dried the tiny wells and juicy roots be¬ 
side the old stone where they fed. Helpless 
little white ant-cows, they were, the ophids, 
that the herdsmen had cared for all spring, 
pasturing and milking so that the builders of 
their city might be fed. 

The building ants had little time to provide 
themselves with food. The carpenters went 
out across the meadow in a great company 
every day to saw the inside out of the old wild 
apple tree and bring the tiny chips back for 
making houses underneath the flat stone. 
The mason ants placed grains of sand, one 
upon the other, to raise the walls and galleries 
of their city, and the road-builders cut their 
way through the jungle of grass to make 
streets to and from the stone. 

But the little black herdsmen of the ants’ 
city were almost as important as the builders. 

94 


THE ADVENTURE OF THE HERD 


95 


They watched the herd of cows night and day. 
If they pastured them on a green leaf, they 
built little sheds for them in great haste, 
bringing up bits of leaves, flowers, decayed 
bark and earth. A storm might come up and 
drown the herd, they knew. When the herds¬ 
men sensed that an army of brown ants was 
approaching the city, they ran with the cows 
to one of their underground rooms to hide the 
stock until the danger was past. The herd 
must not be stolen. 

Now the entire city must be abandoned, be¬ 
cause the pasture was dry. The columned 
castle where the queens lived, the granaries 
with their stores, and the old, travelled roads 
must be given up for new ones. It was a won¬ 
derful procession when the little ant citizens 
came from under the old stone and started out 
on their adventure. The workers, guarding 
the queens, ran along at the side and in the 
center went the herdsmen, each holding one of 
the ant-cows in his mouth. The hazardous 
journey was being taken for their sake, and 
each herdsman knew that he might have to 
give up his life on the way. 

The grasses towered above the ants like 
giant trees. Now they came to a mountain of 


96 


FRIENDLY TALES 


earth, not so high as a mole’s hill to your eyes, 
but almost impassable to these tiny heroes. 
The masons began tunnelling it, building walls 
of sand inside. When the tunnel was finished 
there came an instant’s pause. There are no 
leaders among the ants; each one is, himself, 
a leader. An ant who was larger than the 
others separated himself from the workers 
and went first through the tunnel, risking his 
life to see if it was safe. It proved quite safe, 
so the herd was carried through. 

So, for a while, the way was clear. Then 
the ants stopped again. They had come to a 
wide, deep torrent without a bridge and they 
could not ford it with the ant-cows. It was 
a tiny rivulet in the meadow that the rain had 
left, but it lay like a river between the ants 
and greener spaces on the other side. 

There was another moment of hesitation. 
Then an ant stepped out from the throng of 
workers, climbed a bit of reed that hung over 
the rivulet, and hung there, waiting. A sec¬ 
ond, a third, and then many other ants fol¬ 
lowed him, climbing up the reed stalk. The 
second ant fastened himself to the first one, 
and the third ant to the second one. They 
continued this formation until they had made 




THE ADVENTURE OF THE HERD 97 

a living bridge that stretched across their 
torrent and was fastened where the last ant 
gripped another reed stalk on the opposite 
side. 

There was not a stir or move among the 
herdsmen until they had seen the last of these 
self chosen heroes make the last link in the 
bridge. Then they climbed the reed, carrying 
the ant-cows with the greatest care. The first 
herder stepped cautiously out on the bridge of 
ants, whose safety depended upon that first, 
brave one clinging where the chain began. It 
held and the ants crossed, the herd going first 
and the others following in single file and in 
perfect order. Then the ants who had made 
the bridge unclasped themselves, one by one, 
and joined the procession at the end. 

The adventure had been worth the courage 
it had taken. Here, beyond the rivulet, was 
a new green pasture of young shoots and 
leaves for the ant-cows. There was a wild 
rose bush, too, whose sap would be good for 
the herd. There was plenty of sand and shin¬ 
ing particles of quartz for building a beautiful 
new city under some other old stone. So the 
working ants began gathering their materials 
at once, and the herdsmen set the precious 


98 


FRIENDLY TALES 


white herd of the ophids where they might 
feed and be ready by sunset to feed the work¬ 
ers. 

They belong to the company of little out¬ 
door patriots, living, and adventuring, and dy¬ 
ing if necessary for the good of their city and 
the lives of their citizens. 


WHAT HAPPENED IN THE BEES’ 

CANNERY 


T HE little food factory of the bees out 
in'the apple orchard was full to brim¬ 
ming with cases of honey. For days the mar¬ 
keting bees had foraged the countryside for 
loads of nectar and pollen, carrying their 
laden bags and baskets back to the hive every 
night. When they returned, even at sunset, 
the thousands of little winged workers were 
still busy, each bee doing his or her part in 
preserving the sweets, or carrying on the 
daily life of the wonderful little community. 
They had been busy since sunrise. 

The bees who had gone to market the day 
before had turned their nectar into thick 
honey and the pollen into bread for feeding 
the baby bees. The chemists of the hive fac¬ 
tory had dropped a tiny bit of their acid into 
each little wax jar to keep its contents sweet 
for a long time. The sculptors of the hive, 
who made the beautiful six sided honey jars, 
had smoothed and polished them with their 

99 



> > 
> 3 0 


100 


FRIENDLY TALES 


tiny jaws and had made them a£ thin as pos¬ 
sible for holding the honey so that no wax 
might be wasted. Then there had come those 
last of the wee toilers of the canning room who 
seal each can of yellow honey securely. 

But the business of the hive meant more 
than this. Canning the sweetness of flowers 
meant having & model factory and comfort 
for the workers, the bees knew. The archi¬ 
tects of the hives had built large nurseries for 
the young bees to grow up in, and the house- 
bees tended, fed them and fanned the hive 
with their wings to keep the air fresh and 
pure. The sweepers of the hive kept the pub¬ 
lic streets and the preserving rooms clean. 
Sentinel bees stood on guard between the wax 
pillars at the entrance of the hive to question 
all newcomers as to their business, to drive 
away vagabonds, and to welcome home those 
new bees of the family who had gone out for 
their first flight. 

The hive was beautiful, its storerooms 
brimming with honey and rich red and yellow 
pollen, and its waxen walls polished as if they 
were made of silver. It was perfumed with 
the odors of many flowers. It held cases of 
food to be opened only when the community 



WHAT HAPPENED IN THE BEES’ CANNERY 101 

needed it, but enough to feed all the bees for 
the season. Suddenly, then, the hive stirred. 

,Wings whirred, a low humming came from it. 

The bees felt Outdoors calling them. Their 
work was finished and they longed to go out 
and spend a holiday all together in the apple 
tree. A larger bee than the others, dressed in 
brownish yellow, poised at the door of the hive 
to lead the way. She was the queen bee, who 
had not left her little ones for a season and 
had not, in all that time, seen the sunshine. 
Following the queen bee came all the others, 
her children with new wings, the marketing 
bees, the little sculptors, the distillers of 
honey, the soldiers, even the humble street 
cleaners. Their happy buzzing was like the 
sound of a thousand fairy violins tuning for 
a concert, and the beating of their wings was 
like the flare of elfin trumpets. 

Up, up the branches of the apple tree that 
sheltered the hive they flew, each bee fol¬ 
lowing the queen and trying to come closer to 
her. The queen felt dazed by the sun and the 
wideness of Outdoors. She clung to a branch 
and the others pressed and hung about her, a 
merry, singing, happy-go-lucky party of little 
laborers off for a holiday. How much they 


102 


FRIENDLY TALES 


had to be happy about, their houses in order, 
and their work done! 

Suddenly, like the huge net of a giant 
dropping down upon them, blinding them and 
lifting them from the apple tree, the swarm 
felt itself covered and taken away. The bees 
were crushed, huddled, shaken and when they 
could see again, they found themselves in a 
strange place. 

They had been put inside a new, bare hive. 
They would never see the other, honey filled 
one again, for the same giant who had caught 
them had taken advantage of their holiday to 
wreck their storerooms and carry out the 
dripping combs of honey. 

For a moment the bees’ humming turned to 
droning, as if the city were in tears. Then a 
wonderful thing happened. 

One bee flew bravely up to the top of the 
bare hive and hung there by his fore legs. A 
second bee followed and clung to the back legs 
of this one. Many others followed until they 
made a living curtain from the roof to the 
floor. The bees hung there, perfectly quiet, 
for hours. 

At last one of them detached himself and, 
flying up to the top of the hive, began shaping 


WHAT HAPPENED IN THE BEES’ CANNERY 103 


a little brick of wax from his own body and 
then fastened it to the bare wall of the hive. 
He made more wax bricks and put them in 
place with his jaws, and the other bees began 
helping him. A few, with their jars for nec¬ 
tar and their baskets for pollen, ventured out 
of the hive door. The cleaners swept a place 
clear where the architects might lay out new 
rooms for the young bees who would soon take 
the places of those killed in the great adven¬ 
ture of the swarming. 

The bees were beginning to build a new food 
factory, as busy and as well ordered as the 
one that they had lost! 


THE DRUMMER OF THE WHEAT 

FIELD 

B OB WHITE, the drummer of the wheat 
field, took his cautious way in and out 
of the stalks of wheat that stood, rich and 
golden and heavy, far above his little feather 
cap. He wore feather leggings and a neat 
white collar. His drumsticks hung at his 
side, for he had other work this July day than 
using them. Following Bob were his chil¬ 
dren, all wearing feather leggings and white 
collars. They were learning their father’s 
important business of guarding the wheat 
field. 

Bob stopped at a stalk of weed’seeds and 
gave a low call. All the little Whites stopped 
and ate the seeds. No weeds, Bob knew in 
his wise bird brain, must allow themselves to 
be sown with the next sowing of the wheat. 
Now Bob pounced on a fat beetle and called 
softly again. All the younger Whites 
pounced on other beetles and ate them. Bob 

104 


THE DRUMMER OF THE WHEAT FIELD 105 

knew that no enemy insects could be allowed 
to live and destroy the harvest. 

Boom, Boom, Bang. 

What was that! The younger Whites did 
not understand the noise, or the puff of white 
smoke rising over their heads. Even if their 
father had explained to them, they would not 
have understood why a hunter should want to 
shoot this family of bird soldiers guarding his 
food. But the shot missed them and when 
the smoke cleared, the little ones saw a funny 
sight. Their father, Bob, was limping along 
on one leg as if he had been wounded. He 
looked back at them. Maybe he winked; who 
knows ?. Instantly the little Whites lifted up 
their legs and limped too, hobbling toward 
their low nest of leaves and brush at the end 
of the field. Their feathers were ruffled as if 
they felt very badly indeed. Anyone would 
have thought that the entire White family was 
on its way to a hospital. 

As he led his covey of young soldiers Bob 
was surprised, himself, to be still safe. He 
never left the grain land where his duty was. 
When other birds had flown south in the fall, 
Bob had stayed north, policing the wintry 
field in his little snow shoes. His tent was 


106 


FRIENDLY TALES 


spread by the snow. There he had lived un¬ 
til the ice broke in the spring, the green 
shoots of the wheat came up, and he could 
stand on an old log and drum gaily to call his 
mate. Bob and Mother Bob White built 
their nest right in the midst of danger where 
a plough or a mowing machine could easily 
run over it. Here it was, though, green and 
cozy, with Mother White waiting for the 
family. 

The sun lay like a great gold orange on 
the edge of the west. Then it dropped down 
and bedtime came for the little Whites. 
There were always the same happenings at 
every bedtime there in the wheat field. 
Mother Bob White would remind the little 
Whites of the proper way to go to bed, and 
Bob would strut around them on the tips of 
his toes to see if they remembered. Then he 
and their mother tucked their heads under 
their wings nearby and the field was very 
still. 

Woof, Woof, Woof. 

What was that? Bob went softly around 
his little ones in the dusk to guard them. 
The snuggling younger Whites did not under- 



THE DRUMMER OF THE WHEAT FIELD 107 

stand why a dog should be hunting for them, 
but they were ready for him. They were 
ready because they had remembered the 
proper way for all their family to go to bed. 
They slept in a close circle with their heads 
turned backward to watch for the enemy. So 
they all scurried to safety in a patch of brush, 
and the dog passed by. 

In the morning Bob was the first one up. 
The field was beautiful, almost ready for the 
mowing, and Bob felt very, very proud of it. 
He and all his ancestors had been hatched with 
the same bird patriotism in their hearts; they 
would give up their lives to save a field of 
grain. So would the little Whites give up 
their lives, Bob knew. 

He went in and out of the forest of the 
stalks until he came to the same old log from 
which he had drummed for his mate. Bob 
stood upon it, his neck feathers all ruffled out 
with pride as he looked at the colors of the 
field. There were red poppies and blue corn¬ 
flowers and white everlasting blossoms grow¬ 
ing in among the wheat. Red, white and blue 
for Bob’s courage. 

He spread his wings wide and began to beat 
the air, drumming so loudly that the farmer’s 


108 


FRIENDLY TALES 


boy way over at the other edge of the field 
heard him. 

“There’s a partridge playing his drums for 
the Fourth of July,” the boy thought. “I’ll 
call to him.” So he whistled to Bob. 

Bob stopped drumming for a moment and 
played his fife, calling cheerily back to the boy. 

“I know what he says,” the farmer’s boy 
thought. “ ‘Sow more wheat. Sow more 
wheat.’ Well, we’re going to plough again 
just as soon as this wheat is cut.” 

It was a good way to begin the Fourth of 
July. The brave little partridge thought so 
too. He stood on his tiptoes on the old log 
that was his grand stand and played his fife 
and beat his drums as loudly as he could. He 
was sounding the battle call of his whole bird 
family, a call to arms to guard our daily 
bread. 


LITTLE HOUSE NEIGHBORS 


B ILLY had helped to build Little House 
in the manual training class in school. 
There it stood in the crotch of the apple tree 
in the back yard with a wide bough for a 
door sill, a shingled, sloping roof, and its 
door wide open for guests. Billy wondered 
who these Little House guests would be, for 
there were not many birds left now on his 
street. The lane that had been green and 
leafy when Father bought their place at the 
end of it, was Elm Street now. 

All along Elm Street were small houses, not 
so roomy as theirs. And in every house on 
Elm Street there were children. Billy still 
had a large yard with a tent in it, a swing, and 
a see-saw, but the other Elm Street children 
played outside in the street, for their yards 
were tiny. 

One morning in the spring Billy heard a 
sound of chirping in Little House. He ran 
out to the apple tree and there was a pair 
of fussy little sparrows talking together about 

109 


110 


FRIENDLY TALES 


what they had just done. They had brought 
straw from the stable, old twigs, and pieces 
of cloth and had built the careless kind of a 
nest that sparrows do there in Little House. 
Their nest was spilling out of the doors and 
windows, but they seemed to like it. 

Little House was crowded then, but one day 
a few weeks later Billy heard a loud squab 
coming from it. He tip-toed up to the tree, 
peeped into Little House and, oh, there was a 
fat blue jay crowded into the sparrows’ nest! 
He had added a few sticks of his own to it, but 
that was all. The funniest part of it was that 
the sparrows were about and did not seem to 
mind. They chirped just as cheerfully from 
the roof of Little House as they had from the 
porch. 

“No more neighbors for Little House. 
There isn’t room,” Billy said, laughing. 

But that was a mistake, for the merriest 
thing of all happened late in the summer in 
Little House. 

The blue jay had lived there, when he 
wanted to live anywhere, all this time, but one 
day when Billy was playing alone with his 
soldiers and his toy aeroplane just outside his 


LITTLE HOUSE NEIGHBORS 111 

tent, he heard a new sound from Little House. 
Chatter, chatter, that was what a new tenant 
was saying. 

Billy crept over and looked inside. The 
blue jay stood on a branch above the roof, and 
the bushy tail of a squirrel stuck out of the 
door of Little House, while his bright eyes 
looked out of the back window. He was go¬ 
ing to live there and share, through the cold 
days of the fall, the bedding of the sparrows 
and the blue jay. 

“What a nice, big yard!” 

Billy went to the gate to see where the voice 
came from, and he saw a little boy and girl, 
about his own age, looking in. They seemed 
to be very nice children; Billy had never no¬ 
ticed before how nice the children who had 
small yards were. As he looked at these two, 
he heard the squirrel talking, perhaps to the 
blue jay, 

“Chatter, chatter, chee, 

Room for you, and room for me! y> 

That was a very sensible way to look at 
things, Billy thought now. He beckoned to 


112 


FRIENDLY TALES 


the children who had to play out in the street 
to come into his large yard. 

“1 have a tent and soldiers and an airship 
and an apple tree, and Little House,” he told 
them. It was odd how much nicer they all 
seemed to him after these neighbors of his 
had shared them! 


WHEN TOBY RAN AWAY 


T OBY was the old pussy cat who had been 
in the Bates family ever since Marjorie 
Bates had been, so that made him seven years 
old. 

He never went on adventure trips through 
the alleys as the other cats in the neighbor¬ 
hood did, because he was so contented and 
happy at home. Why should a cat roam, Toby 
thought, when he had a dish all his own for 
his warm milk lettered, “For a good Pussy,’’ 
and a large dolls’ bed near the living room fire 
place in which to sleep ? And he had ribbons 
that were becoming, and collars to match, yel¬ 
low, and green, and red to look pretty with his 
maltese coat. 

When the spring came, the Professor and 
his wife moved out of the house next door and 
a family with children came in. The Bates 
family was not quite sure whether this was 
going to be pleasant or not. 

“There is the gate in the wall that the Pro¬ 
fessor made,” Grandfather Bates said, “per- 

113 


114 


FRIENDLY TALES 


haps those new children will come through and 
get into my flower beds. ’ ’ 

“And that new little girl has short hair. 
She looks like a tomboy,’’ Marjorie said. “I 
am very sure that I don’t want to play with 
her.” 

So the new family moved in, and the new 
little girl looked over the fence wistfully and 
the new little boy whistled across it. But 
Marjorie just looked the other way and played 
on the other side of the garden. 

Then, no one thought any more about the 
new neighbors, for one day Toby, who had 
never gone away before in all his seven years, 
was missing! 

Marjorie called him, and Grandfather went 
up and down the back streets looking for old 
Toby. He even went to the hospital for ani¬ 
mals, thinking that Toby might have been 
fighting and been taken there. Cook rattled 
the shears with which she cut up Toby’s meat. 
He always came running at that sound but 
this time he did not. Toby had disappeared 
completely. It was very strange and very 
sad. The entire Bates family missed him. 

Late in the afternoon of the day on which 
Toby Bates ran away, Marjorie heard a voice 


WHEN TOBY RAN AWAY 


115 


from the garden next door. The new little 
girl was speaking, 

“Isn’t he a dear?” she was saying, “lying 
here on his back in the dolls’ go-cart just as 
if he were a baby. He likes to be dressed up, 
doesn’t he ? Oh, I do think something alive is 
much more fun to play with than dolls!” 

Marjorie could not resist opening the gate 
in the wall between the gardens just a crack 
and looking through. And there was Toby 
dressed in a doll’s extra size night gown and 
a ruffled cap, and riding up and down the gar¬ 
den next door in the dolls’ go-cart. His eyes 
were closed, for he was enjoying it, but Mar¬ 
jorie knew him by his paws that stuck out of 
the sleeves of the gown. 

The new little girl saw Marjorie then, and 
heard her exclaim, ‘ 4 Oh, Toby, we thought that 
you were lost! ’ ’ 

“No, indeed, he isn’t lost,” the new little 
girl said, “and we were going to bring him 
home to supper, but he was so much company 
for us and we are lonesome. He came over 
to call on us, just like a real neighbor, early 
this morning, and he has been here ever since.” 

She did not look like a tomboy and she was 
ever so gentle with Toby. Toby, himself, 


116 


FRIENDLY TALES 


hardly looked at Marjorie, he was so con¬ 
tented, and Marjorie repeated to herself the 
new little girl’s words, 

“ Just like a real neighbor.” 

“ Won’t yon come over with Toby, and have 
supper with us?” Marjorie asked, opening the 
gate wide to let her new neighbor wheel Toby 
in his go-cart through. 


how: tatters helped 

U T Pi you train him while he is young, you 

J[will be able to teach him almost any¬ 
thing. ” Uncle Jim told Jim Junior as he 
pulled the little shaggy, white ball of a dog 
from his pocket and put him into Jim’s eager 
hands. 

“Oh, thank you, Uncle Jim! Doesn’t he 
look all 1 tattered and torn,’ thought” the lit¬ 
tle boy said as he hugged the puppy poodle 
close to his heart. 

And that was the way Tatters came by his 
name, although Jim Junior kept him so well 
washed that his coat was as white as the snow 
that covered the garden when he came. 

Uncle Jim had been right, as he usually was 
about dogs or anything else Jim needed to 
know, when he had told his little master about 
Tatters’ puppy mind. When Tatters came 
to live with Jim, he was only four months old 
and before he was another month nearer being 
an old dog he had learned that a very good way 

117 




118 


FRIENDLY TALES 


to get his dog biscuit and milk, or the leaf of 
lettuce of which he was so fond, was to stand 
up on his hind legs and beg for the food. Soon 
he learned to roll over, to dance on the tips 
of his toes, and to march, even if he did tumble 
down once in a while on the slippery hard¬ 
wood floor. And there were other tricks that 
Tatters learned. He learned tricks as fast 
as Jim learned how to teach them to him. 

The winter was short for Jim with a dog in 
the house to be his friend and playmate. Be¬ 
fore either of them realized it, the spring was 
come and then the garden was blooming with 
pink rambler roses, white snowballs, and blue 
iris, for Decoration Day was coming. Then 
it was Decoration Day, and the band which 
had been practising in the armory was all 
ready to lead the soldiers through State 
Street. 

Uncle Jim stopped at Jim Junior’s house 
right after breakfast. “ Hurry with that por¬ 
ridge, son,” he said to Jim. “The line of 
march is changed. The parade is coming 
through your street. I came down early so 
as to help you and your mother raise the flag 
in your front yard.” 

“Goody!” shouted Jim Junior. “I will 



HOW TATTERS HELPED 


119 


help.” And it was so exciting to pnll the flag 
rope and to sit on the gate post watching for 
the soldiers that Jim forgot to give Tatters 
his breakfast. Such a thing had never hap¬ 
pened before. 

Trumpets, the boom-boom of the great drum 
and the rat-a-pan of the smaller ones, the 
shouts of all the neighborhood boys who came 
on ahead of the parade and stood in a tight 
crowd on the curbing! These came first, and 
were followed by the soldiers marching so 
gallantly in front of the flag in Jim’s yard. 
Jim Junior was sure that there had never be¬ 
fore been so fine a Decoration Day parade in 
his town. He climbed down from the gate 
and went outside so as to be nearer. Suddenly 
Jim saw something odd. 

The children were not watching the parade 
as closely as they had been. They were look¬ 
ing toward Jim’s yard. They were looking at 
Jim’s piazza, because the passersby were 
looking there too and laughing. Jim Junior 
looked with them. What do you think he 
saw? 

There, sitting up on one of the low piazza 
posts where Uncle Jim had set him, was Tat¬ 
ters. He was balanced on his hind legs, and 


120 


FRIENDLY TALES 


although he had eaten no breakfast and was 
ever so hungry, the little white poodle was 
saluting the flag, one salute right after the 
other, with his right paw. 

“I taught him that!” Jim Junior proudly 
told the children. “I taught him to salute a 
little American flag once, but see how he keeps 
on doing it!” Yes, Tatters kept on saluting 
as long as he could balance himself. 

Then Jim Junior took off his hat and saluted 
the flags as the soldiers carried them by. So 
did all the other boys. They had forgotten 
to salute before and there was a little dog, who 
had gone without his breakfast, remembering 
what he ought to do when he saw Old Glory! 

Tatters had a late but large breakfast as 
soon as the parade passed. He had a lump of 
sugar with his dog biscuit and milk, and the 
heart of a head of lettuce. 

“I can tell you something about a dog, Uncle 
Jim, that you didn’t tell me,” Jim Junior said 
as they watched Tatters eat. “A dog can 
sometimes teach a boy quite a good deal. 1 ’ 

“That’s a fact!” said Uncle Jim. 


PETER PAN AND THE LOLLIPOP 

O N one side of the wee little shop where 

Anne’s Granny sold sweets there had 

been built a great, tall dressmaking shop. On 

the other side there had gone up a great, wide 

and tall millinery shop. All up and down the 

street were other shops for fine groceries and 

spices and pastry and silks. It was a street of 

fine shops, and so the wee, little one where 

Anne’s Granny sold her home made molasses 

lollipops, and old fashioned cream bars and 

peppermint drops—big fat ones that she made 

out in her shining kitchen—was shut in. It 

was like a small child in a crowd of bigger 

children. It was hard to find. 

Anne, waiting behind the counter while 

Granny made a fresh batch of candied apples, 

was thinking about this. It was possible that 

no child would come in to buy those apples, 

for all day long the street was full of grand 

automobiles, waiting while the ladies were 

getting new frocks and hats. Few children 

came through the street now, for the school 

121 


122 


FRIENDLY TALES 


had been moved. And Granny owned her wee 
shop, and she needed the children’s pennies 
for herself and little Anne. 

“Oh, dear!” Anne sighed as she looked out 
of the very tiny shop window, “how I do wish 
that a rich customer would come in! ” 

Bow-wow! came her answer. 

Anne stood up on her tip toes to look across 
the counter and there in the center of the shop, 
up on his hind legs begging, was a very rich 
appearing little white dog. He wore a red 
blanket lined with fur and he had been washed 
and combed. But he did want something very 
much. Just then in came Granny with her 
tray of candied apples. Now the little white 
dog began to wave one paw and to bark. 
Granny looked kindly at him over her spec¬ 
tacles. 

“He might like a lollipop, Anne,” she said. 
“I’ve known dogs who had larger sweet teeth 
than boys and girls. Give him a pink lolli¬ 
pop from the case and see if that is what he 
wants.” 

It was, exactly. The little white dog sat 
up on his back legs and held the lollipop by 
its stick in his front paws as he daintily licked 
it. Granny laughed and Anne laughed to see 


PETER PAN AND THE LOLLIPOP 123 

him. It was so funny to watch their new cus¬ 
tomer that they forgot their troubles. And 
just then into the shop came a little girl about 
Anne’s age and with her was a chauffeur. 
They spoke to the dog. 

“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, Peter 
Pan,” said the chauffeur, “to get down from 
your front seat in the automobile and come in 
here begging?” 

“But he does so love lollipops,” said the 
little girl, “and perhaps he saw them through 
the window.” 

“It is all right,” said Granny. “We have 
so few customers now that we were glad to see 
him. He is welcome to the lollipop.” 

“Oh, look at those fresh, candy apples!” 
said the little girl. “I do want one.” She 
bought an apple and opened her very own 
purse to pay her bill and that of Peter Pan. 
It was only ten cents, but she gave Granny 
twenty-five and would not take any change. 
“Peter Pan might want to come in again,” 
she said, laughing, “and this is on his account. 
There is mother now, through with the dress¬ 
maker. Thank you so much!” and she was 
off carrying Peter Pan and his lollipop. 

Peter Pan did come again, the very next 


124 


FRIENDLY TALES 


time that his car had to wait outside the dress¬ 
maker ’s shop. With him was a stylish young 
Airedale whose mistress thought that he was 
safe in her car while she herself was buying 
a new hat. Anne gave both dogs lollipops, but 
the Airedale would not touch his. That per¬ 
plexed Anne and Granny, but in a few mo¬ 
ments into the shop came the Airedale’s mis¬ 
tress and her little boy. They explained it. 

“He likes only soft candies,” the boy told 
Granny. So they gave the Airedale a soft, 
home-made cream candy square and he seemed 
to enjoy it ever so much although he did swal¬ 
low it whole. 

“That cream candy is just like my moth¬ 
er’s,” said the Airedale’s mistress, “just the 
kind I loved when I was a little girl. May I 
buy a pound, please?” she said. And when 
Granny weighed it, she said, “Such good meas¬ 
ure! Why, you don’t charge enough for it!” 
And then she gave Granny a shining silver 
dollar. 

That was the beginning of Peter Pan’s 
Lollipop Shop. The dogs started it, being 
brought in whenever their masters and mis¬ 
tresses had to do errands in the larger and 
more important shops on the street. Then 



PETER PAN AND THE LOLLIPOP 125 

they left orders, through the chauffeurs and 
the children, for candy to be sent home. Anne 
and Granny learned a great deal about the 
candy tastes of rich little dogs, which of them 
liked hard and which soft candy, which ate 
politely and which gobbled, and that hardly 
any dog cared for the flavor of peppermint. 

Then more and more children came with 
their pennies to watch the dogs do their candy 
shopping and to get a lollipop themselves. The 
wee, little shop didn’t mind any more being 
crowded in there among the taller ones. It 
felt large and important. It even got its pic¬ 
ture in the newspaper, but the best part of it 
was what the little shop did for Granny and 
Anne. It gave them everything they needed 
for living in their butey, quiet way. 


THE GUEST IN THE PLAYHOUSE 

T HE playhouse stood in the vacant lot be¬ 
tween Harold Barnes* and Molly New¬ 
ton’s houses, but belonged to the whole neigh¬ 
borhood of children. That was because all of 
the boys and girls had wanted a playhouse 
and the Barnes family owned the vacant lot 
and Mr. Newton was the carpenter who built 
it. 

Everybody had helped to put it up. One 
father gave the lumber and another loaned a 
team to haul it. The father who was a brick¬ 
layer built the beautiful little fireplace, and 
the father who kept a hardware store sent up 
small pots and pans and knives and forks and 
a dishpan. 

One of the mothers made chintz curtains 

for the playhouse windows, and another sent 

the set of blue china cups and saucers and 

plates that she had played with when she was 

a little girl. The children themselves did the 

rest of the playhouse furnishing with a few 

126 


THE GUEST IN THE PLAYHOUSE 127 

little wicker chairs and a table, a big dolls’ 
bed, a toy stove and a cupboard full of picture 
books. 

They planned to have a housewarming, but 
it rained for two days after the playhouse was 
ready. That was too bad, for they had made 
peanut butter sandwiches and ginger cookies 
and taken them over to the playhouse packed 
in a basket. 

But the sun came out on Saturday morning 
and Molly got up very early, for she could 
scarcely wait to take a first peep inside the 
little neighborhood playhouse. There it stood, 
just like a real house, only smaller, the sun 
touching the red chimney and the green paint 
and the white front door and the brass door 
knob. 

“We can have the housewarming today,” 
Molly thought happily, 1 6 only we really ought 
to have company, someone who would like to 
enjoy the playhouse first with us.” As this 
other thought came to her, Molly reached the 
playhouse. Then her eyes grew as large and 
round as two blue buttons, and she almost 
jumped out of her sandals. 

There, on the top step of the playhouse 
piazza, was a little rusty tin cup. It didn’t 


128 


FRIENDLY TALES 


belong to any of the children; Molly was sure 
of that. 

She hurried away from the playhouse so 
quickly that she ran into Harold, bound on the 
same errand as hers, an early peep at their 
house. 

“Don’t go near it, Harold,’’ Molly warned 
him. “I think there’s a tramp inside. He 
left his cup on the front steps.” 

4 6 Pooh! ’ ’ Harold laughed. “ I’m not afraid 
of that. I’ll go up and look in the window.” 

With that, Harold went bravely up the play¬ 
house piazza and looked in through the front 
window that was partly open. Then he came 
away from the playhouse almost as fast as 
Molly had. He explained why when he 
reached her. 

“I wouldn’t run away from a tramp,” he 
said, “but I saw a very small red cap and a 
little green coat on one of the chairs. I didn’t 
see any person, but somebody small enough to 
wear those things must be inside. It looks 
queer.” 

“Dear me, and we’re both wide awake,” 
Molly said. “What are we going to do about 
it?” 

Harold did not know, but by that time the 



THE GUEST IN THE PLAYHOUSE 129 

other children began to gather, very much ex¬ 
cited when they heard of the mystery in the 
playhouse. They all said that something 
must be done about it and at last Molly had 
an idea. 

“We might all make a circle around the 
playhouse,’’ she suggested, “so that the person 
inside won’t be able to escape, and then Har¬ 
old could go in and capture him.” 

It seemed a wise plan, so they circled the 
playhouse very quietly and Harold crept up 
the steps and went in the door. No one dared 
to speak. It seemed a daring, dangerous 
thing for Harold to do and they waited breath¬ 
lessly to see if he came out safely. 

In a minute he did, just grinning, but mo¬ 
tioning for them to be very quiet and come in. 
They did, on their toes, one by one. Oh, what 
a wonderful thing they saw, and true! 

A tired out, dusty little monkey sat up in the 
dolls’ bed, quite at home. He was having his 
breakfast in bed, a sandwich in one paw and a 
cooky in the other. When he saw the children 
he began chattering as fast and as loudly as he 
could to tell them how he happened to be there. 

They couldn’t understand then, but they 
found out later. His master, the Italian 


130 


FRIENDLY TALES 


hurdy-gurdy man, had gone to the camp just 
outside of town to be a soldier, and Jocko 
had been too lonesome without him to stay in 
the Park Zoo where he had been left. So he 
had started out to try and find his dear master, 
but it had rained and he had lost his way. So 
there he was, in the neighborhood playhouse. 

The children took Jocko to camp, and he be¬ 
came the soldiers’ mascot, but he had done 
something else important before that. He had 
changed the name of the playhouse. 

u Let’s call it the Halfway House,” the chil¬ 
dren decided, “a kind of welcoming place for 
whoever needs to come in when it storms or 
they are tired; stray dogs, or cats, or lone¬ 
some children.” 

And that was what they did. 


HOW TWINKLE-TOES WENT TO 

SCHOOL 


T WINKLE-TOES was a little orphan 
mouse, and all that he owned in the 
world was a suit of gray velvet clothes, trou¬ 
sers and jacket, and a sheaf of wheat in which 
he lived. Of course he lived, first of all and 
every day, in the gray velvet suit but the 
sheaf of wheat, which stood beside the big 
barn door, was his home. He had lived there 
so long that he felt as if it belonged to him. 

“There never was such a nice barn as ours!” 
Tilly, the little girl whose father owned the 
farm, often said. It was a beautiful barn, 
very neat and clean, with porcelain troughs 
for the cows to drink from, a scrubbed floor, 
and white china eggs to amuse the hens. It 
was a decorated barn as well. The hired man 
had two large sheaves of wheat standing, one 
on each side of the door, and a design done in 
oats over the door. No one knew that an 
orphan mouse lived in one sheaf of wheat. 

One day, near the end of the last school 

131 


132 


FRIENDLY TALES 


term, Tilly came down to the barn, but she was 
not thinking how nice a barn it was. No, in¬ 
deed, Tilly was ready to cry and she came 
there so that no one would see her. 

“The school pageant is on Friday,” Tilly 
told the cows, ‘ 1 and all the other children have 
new costumes to wear when they speak their 
pieces. My verse is about, ‘ ploughing the 
fields and scattering the good seed in the land,’ 
but I have no new hat to wear, or any new 
dress. Mother is so busy cooking for the farm 
hands that she can’t take the time to make me 
a dress.” 

Not a single cow said a single word to com¬ 
fort Tilly, so she spoke to the hens. 

“There is a beautiful wreath of wild flowers 
and grain down in Miss Trim, the milliner’s, 
window in the village. It would be just right 
for my leghorn hat, but it costs two dollars.” 

Not a single hen made a single suggestion 
about the two dollars. But Twinkle-Toes, 
feeling that the barn was not doing its duty 
by Tilly, made a loud rustling in his sheaf of 
wheat. Tilly looked at it; there was so much 
wheat there that a little would never be 
missed. 

‘‘The very thing! Why didn’t I think of it 


HOW TWINKLE-TOES WENT TO SCHOOL 133 

before?” Tilly said to herself, out loud. “A 
wreath of real wheat on my old hat, and just 
before I go to the school pageant I can stick 
some real wild flowers in it! ’’ 

“And carry a small sheaf of wheat in your 
arms to cover up your last year’s white dress,” 
suggested mother, coming into the barn just 
then for a pan of vegetables. “With your 
pink sash you will look as well as anyone 
there, Tilly.” 

So it was all arranged, all except about 
Twinkle-Toes. And as Tilly broke off sprays 
of wheat to make the wreath and sewed it on 
her hat, a thick, golden wreath, and pulled 
out long stalks for the sheaf she was going to 
carry, Twinkle-Toes jumped out of the way. 
He tried to keep himself in the wheat that 
Tilly was not using. He hid himself so well 
that she did not know he was there. In fact 
Twinkle-Toes became confused and hardly 
knew where he was himself, but of one thing 
he was sure. He was not going to school. 

The Friday of the school pageant came, and 
it was a lovely day. The wild roses were in 
bloom along the roads and the pink clover. 
Tilly looked as sweet as the day, her old white 
dress clean and starchy and the pink sash tied 


134 


FRIENDLY TALES 


in a large bow. She bad put tight little 
bunches of pink clover in the golden wreath of 
wheat in her hat, and there was not another 
so pretty a hat in the pageant. All the other 
little girls spoke of it. 

The pageant was held out-of-doors, of 
course. The school benches were in the 
school yard under the elm trees, and there 
were small chairs in front on which the little 
brothers and sisters sat. The teams were tied 
back of the schoolhouse and those who had 
automobiles parked them in front. It was a 
great occasion. 

Everything went very well. The children 
who were to sing sang, and the children who 
were to speak spoke. No one was afraid, and 
everyone did his or her best. And at last it 
came Tilly’s turn, so she went up to the front 
holding her head very straight and high, 
partly to keep up her courage, and partly be¬ 
cause real wheat is heavy for a wreath on 
a hat. 

6 We plough the fields,” began Tilly and 
then the hired man’s twins, who sat with their 
mother near the front, looked at Tilly and 
snickered. It was just that, they snickered. 
Their mother nudged them and they put their 


HOW TWINKLE-TOES WENT TO SCHOOL 135 

handkerchiefs to their mouths, but the snick¬ 
ers came out of the corners and all the little 
brothers and sisters on the front row giggled. 
Tilly felt terribly. She thought that the 
twins and the brothers and sisters were laugh¬ 
ing at the hat she had trimmed in the barn, 
or the sheaf of real wheat she carried. But 
one thing Tilly knew; she must do her best, 
she must keep right on. 

“And scatter the good seed in the land,” 
Tilly said, and then Miss Trim, the village 
milliner who had run over from her shop to 
the pageant with her pin cushion and scissors 
hanging at her waist, laughed out loud. “She 
is making fun of my hat,” Tilly thought, and 
two salt, hot tears ran down her pink, hot 
cheeks. But nobody saw anything except the 
pink in Tilly’s cheeks which just matched her 
pink sash, and she went right on to the end 
of the piece. Tilly had been brought up to 
make the best of things. 

And when Tilly made her bow, how the audi¬ 
ence did clap! No scholar had been so ap¬ 
plauded. Tilly made a second bow—and off 
the rim of her hat jumped Twinkle-Toes! 

Twinkle-Toes had never intended going to 
the pageant. He had tried so hard not to that 


136 


FRIENDLY TALES 


he had hidden himself in a thick part of Tilly’s 
hat wreath the night she had left the hat out 
in the barn to wait for the bunches of clover. 
All the time Tilly had been saying her piece 
Twinkle-Toes, in his gray velvet trousers and 
jacket, had sat on the rim of her wide hat, his 
head eyes popping out of his head. He was a 
very young orphan mouse and very much 
frightened. And then he jumped down to 
Tilly’s feet and scampered off to the orchard 
behind the schoolhouse. 

“After all,” thought Twinkle-Toes, “why 
not make the best of things. An orchard is 
pleasanter in the summer than a barn, and 
when winter comes I can hide in the school 
scrap-basket.” 

And the hired man’s twins, and all the little 
brothers and sisters, and Miss Trim told Tilly 
that a mouse had made quite a decoration foi 
the prettiest hat at the pageant. 


THE RUNAWAY CAVE 


N OT a single family in Smoky Corners 
was going to move that May. The 
reason for this was that there were no new 
houses for them to move into. So many work¬ 
men had come to Smoky Corners on account 
of the great iron works whose chimneys made 
the valley dark and dirty, that even the 
town garage had been made over into tene¬ 
ments. And that is the reason why the Cave 
was lodging out in Mrs. Toohey’s back yard 
in company with several small cars, a push 
cart and a rag peddler’s wagon. 

It was not, in the beginning, meant to be 
the Cave. It was a big automobile truck mov¬ 
ing van. It belonged to Mr. Peters, the 
Smoky Corners moving man, hut when the 
garage was given up, Mrs. Toohey, who had a 
kind heart, said yes when Mr. Peters asked 
if his truck could join the other four-wheeled 
lodgers in her yard. 

“ There isn’t enough moving business to 

137 


138 


FRIENDLY TALES 


pay my rent, let alone that of my truck,” Mr. 
Peters told her. 

“Drive in then,” Mrs. Toohey said kindly. 
“What’s a yard for if not to share with a 
neighbor.” 

“It is just like a cave inside,” Jimmy 
Toohey said to Little Sam as they explored the 
big idle truck the next day. He and Little 
Sam, whose father shoveled coal into the fur¬ 
naces of the Works all day, were chums. 
Some day, they knew, they were going out 
west together to lassoo cattle and shoot bears. 

“It is,” Little Sam said, climbing into 
the truck with Jimmy, “deep and dark and 
queer smelling.” 

“We could play in it every day,” Jimmy 
said, “hang up a piece of clothes line on one 
of these hooks on the side wall for a lariat, and 
have an old sauce pan and a pot or two.” 

“Just as if we lived here,” Little Sam 
agreed, “and use one of your mother’s old 
fence pickets for a gun to shoot wild animals.” 

So the truck began being a Cave, and the 
boys had such good times in it that they hoped 
no one would ever move, and need Mr. Peters’ 
help, in Smoky Corners. The days were 
longer and the scraggly tree that shared the 


THE RUNAWAY CAVE 


139 


end of the back yard where the truck stood 
had green leaves. The boys could easily play 
that they were out West. They played in the 
Cave until supper time, and Little Sam slept 
with Jimmy one night so they could get up 
early in the morning, before it was daylight, 
and watch for the bear they had played they 
heard growling the night before at the wide, 
cavern-like door of the Cave. 

They huddled together, in the dark of the 
early morning, in the back of the truck among 
the boxes and barrels that had been there ever 
since Mr. Peters had brought the truck, and 
their eyes grew heavy with the watching. It 
was too early for breakfast, and they had 
talked about Indians and the West until late 
the night before in bed. They grew drowsy. 

It was Little Sam who awoke to their danger 
first. 

“Jimmy!” he said, “we’re moving!” 

Jimmy sat up among his pots and pans, 
clutching the lariat and peered out through 
the little window-like opening in the back of 
the Cave. The dingy streets of the Corners 
had given way to a long road beside a railroad 
track. There were many trees and green 
meadows. 


140 


FRIENDLY TALES 


“The Cave is running away,” Jimmy 
gasped. “We’re on the way out West!” 

Little Sam sniveled. He was only six to 
Jimmy’s eight. “I don’t want to go out 
West,” he said. 

Jimmy put his arm around Little Sam. 
“Neither do I, Sam,” he said, “but don’t you 
be scared. I know how to lassoo, for I have 
practised on the pump. I’ll take care of 
you.” 

They bumped and rolled along almost as 
fast as the freights they passed, and for a long 
time. There was not the least use in crying 
out or pounding on the walls of the truck, for 
the wheels made so much noise that they could 
not have been heard. 

When it seemed as if they had been riding 
for days, although it had been really only a 
few hours, the Cave stopped. The door 
opened, and they heard Mr. Peters’ voice. 

“Load him in here at the back. I waited 
until I had a load of freight for the city. 
That is why I didn’t come before. Just help 
him in. There is plenty of room at the back. ” 

Jimmy and Little Sam heard the sound of 
lumbering feet, a growl of injured dignity, the 
voice of a stranger saying, 


THE RUNAWAY CAVE 


141 


“Fit as a fiddle he is now, thick fur, has 
some spirit. He wouldn’t touch meat when he 
first came, but he has a good appetite now.” 

And a big, brown bear was boosted into the 
Cave! The boys could plainly see him as they 
peered over the boxes. 

Little Sam yelled. Jimmy threw his lariat, 
bravely, and caught the bear around his neck. 
There was a scuffle, the two men jumped in 
the truck, and the two' boys were helped out. 
The bear just sat there quietly with the rope 
around his neck. He was tied to the truck 
anyway, so he hadn’t minded being lassoed. 

How Mr. Peters and the other man at the 
big country place did laugh when they heard 
about the Cave, and saw the boys. It seemed 
that the strange man used to be an animal 
trainer, and now he boarded sick animals from 
zoos occasionally, taking good care of them 
until they were well. The boys could see a 
giraffe out in his animal enclosure, a friendly 
little monkey in the orchard. 

“That bear wouldn’t touch a rabbit,” the 
Animal Trainer told the boys, “but you two 
ranchers had better stay here with me and 
Mother until the truck comes by on the way 
back to the Corners. 


142 


FRIENDLY TALES 


So Jimmy and Little Sam had a fine visit 
in the country, doughnuts, and a giraffe, and 
a monkey. And the Animal Trainer said he 
liked boys and they must come often, and stay 
longer the next time. 


WHEN MUD VILLAGE MOVED 


A NY other boy except Jimmy Brown 
would have felt very badly at having 
Roaring Brook dry up just as the long sum¬ 
mer vacation set in. It had never been a very 
roaring brook; it had been only deep enough 
for comfortable wading, but Jimmy was proud 
of it. 

It was a hot summer, though, and what lit¬ 
tle water had rippled over the pebbles was 
gone as if it had soaked into the bottom and 
left only the soft, brown mud. It left sur¬ 
prises, did the drying up of the brook. In 
his bare feet Jimmy walked into the brook 
bottom and found a whole forest of little rush 
plants, as thick as a jungle. There was moss 
too, growing greenly on the rocks, and many 
smooth pebbles of many different colors. 

“If I had someone to play with,” Jimmy 
said to himself as he sat on the bank of the 
brook, “I could make a tine little village there 
in the bottom with the moss for lawns, those 
rush shoots for the trees, and castles and 

143 


144 


FRIENDLY TALES 


houses built of pebbles and twigs. That soft 
mud would be splendid for sticking stones and 
twigs together for building, just like mortar.” 
But then Jimmy sighed. He had no one to 
play with. A girl had come for the summer 
to live on the place next to Jimmy’s mother’s 
farm, but she did not look one bit, from the 
glimpses Jimmy had taken of her riding out 
in an automobile, like a mud village girl. She 
looked like a city girl who never got her hands 
dirty. 

“If I only knew that girl,” Jimmy went 
on to himself, “she could run the mud pie 
bake-shop in my village, and we could have a 
lot of fun.” But all at once Jimmy’s good 
nature, which helped him to make the best of 
a dried up brook, told him what to do. “I 
will make Mud Village all by myself,” he said 
to a chattering chipmunk who was watching 
from a tree. “I am going to make it so well 
that if that girl ever walks along this way, she 
will be surprised.” So Jimmy went into the 
brook bottom again and to work. 

By noon Mud Village was finished, and it 
was wonderful. There in the brook bottom, 
on the moss and among the rush shoots, were 
pebble towers, the mud that held the stones 


WHEN MUD VILLAGE MOVED 145 

together looking just like old stonework in 
story book castles. There were pebble houses, 
made the same way and having little drive¬ 
ways laid out in the mud with the very small 
pebbles. There were twig buildings, too, 
made of short branches, crossed at the corners 
and fastened in place with mud. It was a 
village just the right size for elves and Jimmy 
was sorry when he heard his dinner bell. 

“I will come back this afternoon,” he de¬ 
cided, “and make a stone wall all around it 
to keep out the frogs.” 

It was later than he had intended, though, 
when Jimmy returned to the brook. He 
thought at first that he had made a mistake in 
the place, for he couldn’t see Mud Village. 
There was only a big hole in the brook bottom 
where he had built it. He went down the 
bank a little way, and then he nearly tumbled 
down in his surprise. There was Mud Vil¬ 
lage but it was moving, slowly to be sure, 
but it was moving down the brook bottom. 
The moss, the little rush trees, the pebble 
castles, the twig cottages, all were going! 

Jimmy kept pace with it. That was easy 
enough, for the village was going slowly. 
Sometimes a castle wall would tremble and 


146 


FRIENDLY TALES 


then the village would stop as if it wanted to 
be careful of itself. Then, on it went again, 
and Jimmy began to see where Mud Village 
was bound for. It was on its way to the next 
place where the city girl lived. 

Jimmy rubbed his eyes. “It can’t be mov¬ 
ing,” he said over and over to himself. And 
then he would see that the village had passed, 
first the old horse chestnut tree, and then after 
a long time, it was as far as the row of beeches 
which separated his farm from the next one. 
Jimmy bravely crossed the line too, and there 
was the girl watching the slow approach of 
Mud Village down the brook bottom. 

She looked like a nice girl to play with, 
in khaki clothes and with hands black from 
digging. Her eyes were as big as two blue 
saucers as she looked, first at the little village 
and then at Jimmy. Neither of them spoke 
at first, and it was the girl who did at last. 

“Did you ever see such a big turtle!” she 
asked Jimmy. “He’s carrying his own shell 
house and a whole little village beside!” Her 
face was dimpled with laughter. 

Jimmy looked closely. Yes, she was right. 
It was a big mud turtle on whose hiding place 
in the brook bottom Jimmy had set up his 


WHEN MUD VILLAGE MOVED 147 

village and when the turtle had wanted to 
move on its slow way to wetter quarters, why, 
it had been obliged to take the village too. 
Plomp—just then the turtle took a turn and 
down went Mud Village. He poked a funny 
head out from under his shell to see what had 
happened and Jimmy and the girl laughed 
so hard that they suddenly knew each other 
very well. 

“Do you think you could make another nice 
little town like that in the brook ?” she asked 
him. 

“I could!” Jimmy told her. 

“Could I make some mud pies for it?” she 
asked longingly. 

“It needed a bake-shop,” Jimmy told her, 
and the two went to work, while the mud turtle 
took his slow way down the brook. He looked 
once at them, though, before he drew his odd 
little head inside his shell. And if a turtle’s 
eye ever twinkled, that turtle’s did! 


SHARP EYES PLAYS CADDY 


T HE Piney Ridge golf club thought that 
Jimmy Ryan was the very best caddy it 
had on its list. And Jimmy, himself, knew 
that he had as sharp eyes if not sharper than 
any of the older boys who earned their hourly 
wage on the links through the summer vaca¬ 
tion. 

Jimmy was eight years old, but he knew the 
Rough, living right in it, so to speak, better 
than the other older boys. He and Granny 
Ryan and Clover Ryan, Jimmy’s blue-eyed 
little sister, had a kind of cabin in that wild 
part of Piney Ridge where most of the golf 
balls were lost. Indeed, Granny often said 
that she expected nothing so much as that 
some wash-day a little, round white ball would 
bounce through their door right into her tub 
of soap-suds. 

There was a reason for Jimmy being such 
a good caddy. All his years of living there 
in the Rough with Granny, since he and Clover 
had been without anyone else, he had explored 

148 


SHARP EYES PLAYS CADDY 149 

the woods. He knew the holes at the roots of 
old trees where one could slip in a careful 
hand and bring out a winking baby rabbit, 
putting it right back again in the nest, of 
course. 

He could make a squirrel talk back to him 
as they argued together as to the ownership 
of shag-barks and chestnuts in the fall. This, 
although Jimmy never failed to give a squirrel 
the larger share of the harvest. He was ac¬ 
quainted with that particular bit of Rough, 
from its first blue violets in the spring, to its 
last red leaf of the fall. Every root and 
blind hole of it he knew. And he had earned, 
this summer, a pair of new spectacles for 
Granny and new trousers and shoes for one 
Jimmy Ryan finding golf balls. He was plan¬ 
ning to buy Clover a length of pink gingham 
for a dress when the first day of school came. 
On wings it came, the first day of school. 
Such a short summer it had been! And the 
golf links were no longer his gold mine, for 
Saturdays he must help Granny with chores 
and errands. 

Pink gingham and blue eyes! These made 
a kind of mist in front of Jimmy’s freckled 
face as he packed his school bag. He had 



150 


FRIENDLY TALES 


wanted to see Clover dressed up like a little 
lady. 

“Your schooling comes first,” Granny told 
him as she tied his necktie, made from a strip 
of her old delaine dress, in a smart bow and 
looked proudly at his shoes. 

“I wish I hadn’t bought them,” Jimmy 
said. 

“And how you would have looked in the old 
ones!” Granny laughed cheerfully. “You 
deserved them, and you earned them, and 
Clover can wait.” 

As if to try to add to his comfort, Clover 
ran in the door just then like a sunbeam with 
her laughter. “Look, Jimmy!” she cried. 
4 4 He’s losing his tail! ’ ’ 

Sure enough! The old squirrel, who always 
turned up looking for free meals at their 
house after the golfing season was less busy, 
sat at the door sill, his little paws folded pa¬ 
tiently over his jacket of gray. But his tail, 
formerly so bushy, waved sadly now. He was 
a very old squirrel and he was losing his hair. 

He got his cooky and carried it back to the 
hollow pine tree on the edge of the Rough 
where the children knew he had lived for many 
seasons. As Jimmy passed it on his way to 


SHARP EYES PLAYS CADDY 151 

school he saw the squirrel sitting at his thresh¬ 
old of moss eating the cooky. 

“He is so old that he is greedy,” Jimmy 
thought. “He used to hide his food, at least 
part of it, in the tree. I must keep him sup¬ 
plied with nuts this fall.” 

So Jimmy did this. As soon as the autumn 
frosts brought down the hickory nuts in their 
green coats, Jimmy gathered plenty of them, 
took off the outer shells, and left a pile at the 
hollow pine tree. But he began to feel as if 
this were wasted effort. The old squirrel 
seemed to have lost his wits. He ate what 
nuts he wanted for the day, and then he would 
leave a pile of the remaining ones in plain 
sight outside his tree. Of course the younger 
ones of his tribe found this out and took them. 

“I can’t gather nuts for all your sisters and 
your cousins and your aunts, you know, old 
man,” Jimmy told the squirrel one day in the 
late fall as he emptied his pockets at the roots 
of the hollow pine. The old squirrel, wait¬ 
ing there for his dinner, looked, Jimmy 
thought, in a discouraged way at the shells 
strewn about his doorstep. It was as if he 
wanted to say that neither did he like to keep 
a nut boarding house for all the little squirrel 


152 


FRIENDLY TALES 


vagabonds of the Rough. It wasn’t, he 
wanted to say, entirely his fault. If he was 
old, he still knew a thing or two. 

As if to prove to Jimmy that he had been 
wrong in questioning his extravagance, the 
squirrel made a sudden dash into the depths 
of the hollow tree. He made a great scratch¬ 
ing in there as if to try and make space for 
at least a small pile of winter nuts. As he 
worked and Jimmy watched, out rolled a golf 
ball! 

“Why-ee!” Jimmy shouted, going down on 
his hands and knees in his excitement. The 
squirrel came out now, looking at the ball as 
if to say, 

“I don’t know why I gathered them, ex¬ 
cept perhaps because there were so many of 
them, and I couldn’t stand it to see them 
wasted. I had an idea that I might be able to 
crack them and find them of some use this win¬ 
ter, but here they are—if you can use them! ’ ’ 

Jimmy scratched, dug, poked with a stick 
in the squirrel’s cache. Ever so many golf 
balls rolled out, good golf balls at that. They 
could be cleaned and sold at the Piney Ridge 
golf house for enough to buy that pink ging¬ 
ham for Clover. It was too wonderful to be- 









SHARP EYES PLAYS CADDY 


153 


lieve, but there they were. And the squirrel, 
Sharp Eyes of the Rough, Jimmy named him 
on the spot, looked as joyful as Jimmy. He 
went right to work filling his empty cellar with 
nuts where they would be safe from his sisters 
and his cousins and all the rest of his relations 
when snow came. 


DOBBIN’S THANKSGIVING 


C LAIRE and Don called him Dobbin, al¬ 
though he was only an old dray horse 
who stood at the noon hour on their block 
while his driver had his dinner. 

“He looks like that nice old Dobbin that 
used to graze in Grandfather’s south pasture 
last summer,” Claire said. 

“Just exactly as friendly and old,” Don 
said, “but not so fat.” 

“He stands so quietly without being tied,” 
Claire said, “perhaps that is because he is 
tired. He does have to draw very heavy 
loads.” 

“Sometimes he seems almost too tired to 
eat his own dinner that his master leaves for 
him,” Don said. 

“Well it often happens that he can’t eat his 
oats,” Claire explained, “I have watched him 
and I know. You see his driver stands the 
bag on the hitching stone and sometimes it 
tips over, and when the oats are low in the 

154 


DOBBIN’S THANKSGIVING 


155 


bag, of course Dobbin can’t reach them.” 

It was the sunny, windy, red and gold fall 
when the little brother and sister talked about 
the old horse, a season that brought them ever 
so much to do in the way of lessons and fun. 
Then Thanksgiving Day came and with it 
dear Grandmother and Grandfather, a fat tur¬ 
key and a deep mince pie, and a flurry of snow. 
It was not until quite a long time after the 
nuts were eaten that Claire spoke about the 
old dray horse. 

“Dobbin’s out in the street in the snow,” 
she exclaimed, “ trying to eat his Thanksgiving 
dinner.” 

“He isn’t eating it,” Don said from the 
window, “his nose bag has fallen off again.” 

Claire ran to the window to look out. 
“Poor Dobbin!” she exclaimed. Then she 
disappeared, and Don saw her in a minute 
with her coat and hat on, out in the front 
yard on her way to the street. He put on his 
things and ran after her. “Wait a minute, 
Claire. Where are you going?” Don asked, 
for they always did things together. 

Claire pulled some strong twine from her 
pocket. “I am going to help Dobbin eat his 
Thanksgiving dinner,” she said, “but I wish 


156 


FRIENDLY TALES 


you would help me, Don, because I am a little 
afraid to do it alone.” 

Claire had no need, though, of being afraid. 
Dobbin turned kind eyes on her as she gath¬ 
ered up the oats from the ground and put 
them back in the bag. Then she stepped up 
on the hitching stone. She laughed as Dobbin 
nosed in her pocket. 

“He must have been loved by somebody 
once, Don,” Claire said, “he is looking for 
sugar. Now you tie the ends of the twine 
tightly to those holes in the bag. That’s it; 
now give the bag to me.” 

Claire stood on the tips of her toes, reached 
up, and slipped the bag with the twine at¬ 
tached, over Dobbin’s head back of his ears. 
It couldn’t possibly tip over or slip off there 
on his neck with his ears holding it in place. 

“Isn’t that splendid*?” Don said as the two 
watched the old horse cheerfully munching 
his oats. 

The same thought came to a man who passed 
on a motorcycle just then, but neither of the 
children saw him. 

Not very long after that Don and Claire 
were on their way to school. Suddenly they 
stopped. “Look at that coal horse,” Claire 


DOBBIN’S THANKSGIVING 


157 


said, “ fixed for his dinner just as we fixed 
Dobbin and his driver has ever since!” 

Sure enough! There was a horse that had 
been drawing a heavy load of coal, and he had 
a shiny tin pail of oats hung from his neck 
by a strong cord. It said S. P. C. A., Society 
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, in 
big black letters on the pail. 

“Do you suppose anybody saw Dobbin’s 
Thanksgiving?” Claire asked breathlessly. 

“You never can tell who sees what you do 
in the street,” Don said, which was quite true. 

The man on the motorcycle from the S. P. C. 
A. had seen. 
















WHEN GREAT DAYS COME 
TO TOWN 










A EEAL HALLOW-E’EN WITCH 


T HE children of The Salem were haying a 
Hallow-e’en party. It did not matter 
a bit that The Salem was a city apartment 
house, far away from cornfields, and pumpkin 
patches, and harvest filled barns, and all the 
other fall things that go with Hallow-e’en. 
Did they not have the park to glimpse through 
The Salem’s high windows, where the trees 
had been red and gold all through October? 
Were they not having, too, some of the coun¬ 
try fun that goes with Hallow-e’en right there 
in the city? 

Gerald, and Helen, and Maud, and Stanley 
had become acquainted with each other 
through meeting in the halls of the apartment 
house on their way to school. And when 
Helen’s mother sent the other three invita¬ 
tions with little red witches riding on broom¬ 
sticks in the corner, and which read, “Come 
to our Hallow-e’en Party in apartment 3D, 
tonight at half past seven” how happy they 
were! 


161 



162 


FRIENDLY TALES 


What surprises they found there! 

Ten other children had been invited from 
the other apartments, and they all became 
acquainted through hunting for red and 
yellow paper leaves that Helen had cut and 
colored and then hid in the nooks of the 
rooms. 

There was no light except candles and little 
orange Jack-O-Lanterns made of crepe paper 
and hung over the electric lights. In the 
kitchen there were chestnuts to roast, and a 
tub of rosy apples to bob for, and all the 
marshmallows they could roast. When they 
were through with this fun, Helen’s mother, 
who told stories every week in the big public 
library and could do it very well, asked them 
to all sit about her in a circle for a story time. 

“We will turn out all the lights except the 
candles,” Helen said, “so it will seem like the 
woods where the witches rode over the tree 
lops.” 

“It was near old Salem where the first 
witches lived,” Gerald said, “I went there 
last summer with father for a fishing trip, 
and we saw some of their queer little houses 
down on Dog Town Common.” 

This sounded so true and strange that the 



A REAL HALLOW-E’EN WITCH 163 

other children drew closer together, shivering 
with delight. 

“But the real, true witches lived in the fairy 
tales, ’ ’ Helen’s mother began. 61 Once upon a 
time there was a witch who lived way off in the 
woods in a little house that was all made of 
gingerbread, and every night she rode off over 
the tree on her broomstick steed—” but just 
as she came to this part of the story, the 
children heard a low tap at the door of the 
apartment. 

Helen went to open it, and when she came 
back, her eyes were wide open with wonder. 

“There was no one there,’’ she said, “but I 
found this hung to the door knob on the out¬ 
side.” Helen showed the children a wee toy 
broom. 

“As if the witch had left her calling card,” 
Maud said at last, but no one else said any¬ 
thing, for it was very, very odd. They all 
drew closer together and Helen’s mother went 
on with the story, telling how one night this 
witch of the gingerbread house found two chil¬ 
dren, a boy and a girl, lost in the woods, and 
decided to keep them with her. “They had 
to do her work,” she said, “and she went about 
on her broomstick to see if the house was neat 


164 


FRIENDLY TALES 


and clean, and the broomstick went tap, 
tap — 99 

Tap, tap, tap, there was a sound of the 
broom-stick tapping its way through the halls 
of The Salem. It stopped right outside the 
door of the Hallow-e’en party! 

Gerald was the brave one who went out to 
see if they had not been mistaken about it. 
When he came back, everybody exclaimed. 
Gerald had a large broom in his arms! When 
they examined it closer, they found a little 
piece of red cloth clinging to it, as if the witch 
had torn her petticoat on the branch of a tree, 
or in galloping from one tree top to another. 

Just then they heard a wail out in the hall, 
just the kind of cry that a witch might give, 
O, oo, long drawn out. 

This time Helen’s mother went out into the 
hall, and in a minute she returned, leading the 
dearest little witch that ever left her steed at 
a Hallow-e’en party door. She wore a red 
dress, and her hair was as black as a raven’s 
wing and her eyes as dark as the sky at night. 
But she was crying! 

“She is our janitor’s little grand daughter, 
Margherita, and she was helping him sweep 
the halls,” Helen’s mother explained. “She 


A REAL HALLOW-E’EN WITCH 


165 


knew there was some kind of a good time go¬ 
ing on in here, and she left ns the little toy 
broom that she bought at the toy shop today. ” 

“Then I peeped through the keyhole to see, 
and I ran away, and left my broom/’ Mar- 
gherita said, “but I must have it. Please do 
not keep it, for it belongs to my grandfather 
and he needs it to keep the halls clean.” 

“Here it is,” Helen said, and Margherita 
smiled as she took it in her hands. 

“And here are some marshmallows, and 
chestnuts, and an apple,” the other children 
cried, crowding around the little witch and 
filling her pockets with goodies, just to see her 
laugh with joy. 

“And you must stay and finish the party 
with us,” Helen’s mother said, “I will tele¬ 
phone down to your grandfather.” 

“Who said we couldn’t keep Hallow-e’en in 
the city?’* Gerald said, “witches and every¬ 
thing!” 


MOOLY’S THANKSGIVING 


T HIS is a story about a Thanksgiving Day 
a long, long time ago. It happened in 
the days of the great-grandfathers, and red 
farms, and dried apples and the Cracker-Man. 
It is about a little boy named Hiram, who 
grew up to be a great-grandfather, and who 
lived in a red farmhouse. 

What are dried apples? 

Hiram could have told you. For days and 
days of the golden fall Hiram sat at the back 
door of the farmhouse and cut fat, rosy apples 
without specks into thin rings. Then he hung 
these rings of cored apples up on strings in 
the sunshine which warmed them, and sweet¬ 
ened them, and made them into dried apples. 
Later they would be hung up in the attic, and, 
oh, what good pies they would make in the 
winter, cooked in molasses! The back door- 
yard was fairly festooned with dried apples 
when Hiram finished. 

Who was the Cracker-Man? 

Hiram could have told you that too. The 

166 


MOOLY’S THANKSGIVING 


167 


Cracker-Man went from farm to farm just 
before Thanksgiving making a barrel of 
crackers and a barrel of ginger snaps for 
every pantry. There were no bakery shops 
in those long-ago days, so the Cracker-Man 
was very useful. Hiram’s mother supplied 
the Cracker-Man with flour and milk, ginger, 
eggs and molasses. She paid him fifty cents 
a day and gave him and his little boy all they 
could eat. Out in the kitchen the Cracker- 
Man, in his big white apron, mixed, and 
kneaded, and pounded, and baked while his 
little boy watched Hiram cut dried apples. 

“Ginger,” said Hiram as he hung up the 
last string of apples on the clothes line, and 
spoke to the Cracker-Man’s little boy, who 
had the pet name of Ginger, “those dried 
apples are worth a lot. I should say that they 
were worth a whole dollar.” 

Ginger’s eyes looked big and round. “I 
never had a dollar,” he told Hiram. 

“Well, never mind, Ginger,” Hiram told 
him. “You are going to have a fine Thanks¬ 
giving dinner this year. You ought to be 
thankful that your father is making crackers 
at this farm, because you will both eat dinner 
here. Chicken pie, turkey, mashed turnips, 


FRIENDLY TALES 


168 

boiled squash, pumpkin and mince pie, raisins 
and nuts!” But Ginger still seemed to be 
thinking of the dried apples. 

“Who would pay a dollar for those strings 
of apples?” he asked. 

“Anyone,” Hiram told him, “who doesn’t 
want the work of cutting them.” 

Two days before Thanksgiving Day a cold, 
fall rain set in. Hiram had gone in the team 
to bring home some of the cousins who were 
to have dinner at his house. He thought that 
his mother would put the strings of dried 
apples up in the attic. She was so busy stuf¬ 
fing the turkey and fixing vegetables, and mak¬ 
ing pies, that it slipped her mind. When she 
looked out in the yard and saw the empty 
clothes line, she thought that Hiram had put 
the dried apples up in the attic. 

The dried apples were gone! 

Ginger, also, was gone! 

It came time for dinner on Thanksgiving 
Day, and everyone sat down at the long, 
loaded table. In addition to mother and 
father and Hiram and all the relatives, the 
hired man and the hired girl and the Cracker- 
Man sat at the Thanksgiving table with the 
family. No one ever thought of leaving them 


MOOLY’S THANKSGIVING 


169 


out on such a day. The sun was shining again, 
and it was a beautiful Indian Summer kind 
of day. But they all missed Ginger. 

“I am glad you and Ginger hung up the 
dried apples in the attic before it rained/’ 
Hiram’s mother said as she gave him a drum¬ 
stick. “I saw Ginger out in the dooryard 
with you.” 

Hiram was so surprised that he could not 
eat his turkey. Where were the dried apples ? 
Where was Ginger, who had asked how much 
the dried apples would bring? Hiram felt 
very badly, for he had liked Ginger ever so 
much. He made up his mind that he would 
never tell that Ginger had taken and sold the 
dried apples, but he had suddenly lost his 
appetite for the fine dinner. 

“Where is your little boy?” mother asked 
the Cracker-Man. “ Shall I put a plate of 
turkey and mashed potato to warm for him 
in the oven?” 

“Thank you, ma’am,” said the Cracker- 
Man in a worried voice. “I should be obliged 
to you if you would be so kind. I only missed 
the lad this morning. I can’t say where he 
is.” 

But just then there was a noise in the back 


170 


FRIENDLY TALES 


door yard, and the family left the table to 
look out. Such an odd sight as met their eyes! 

Ginger had been missed. The strings and 
strings of dried apples had been missed. But 
no one had missed Mooly, the red and white 
cow. She had a way of wandering off by her¬ 
self to pasture when she liked and then com¬ 
ing home. This time, though, Mooly had 
looked in the dooryard before she went, and 
she had carried all the dried apple strings 
away with her. She had poked her head un¬ 
der the clothes line and festooned herself with 
dried apples. Of course she could not get 
them off, and so she had walked away with 
them. 

One thing a dried apple is sure to do if it 
gets wet. It swells. It had rained on Mooly. 
She had grown confused, covered as she was 
with strings and strings of dried apples, all 
swelling bigger with every drop of rain, and 
she had wandered farther and farther away 
from home. But here she was, looking like a 
four legged apple pie, and being gently driven 
home by—who do you supposed Why, Gin¬ 
ger! 

“I found that all your dried apples that you 
said were worth a dollar, were gone,” Ginger 


MOOLY’S THANKSGIVING 


171 


told them, “and so I went out to catch the 
thief. I found your cow carrying them down 
the road to the village and here she is but I 
don’t believe the apples can be used now.” 

How everyone laughed! And how glad 
Hiram was that he had not spoken of his 
doubt of Ginger! Ginger ate a large dinner. 
Each one of the family had a large dinner and 
no one minded the loss. 

But Mooly’s Thanksgiving was the best of 
all. She was so glad to be safe in her stall 
in the barn, and saved from those swelling 
dried apples. 


THANKSGIVING FOR THE 
PEANUT ROASTER 


TURKEY with all the fixings!” 



Peter said to Polly as they stood, side 


by side, looking out of Grandmother’s wide 
kitchen window. 

“And a mince pie and a pumpkin pie and 
nuts and oranges and raisins and molasses 
taffy!” added Polly clasping her hands with 
delight. 

“All just for us, because we have come to 
Grandfather’s Town for Thanksgiving,” 
Peter said. 

“Ye-es,” Polly hesitated a little as she 
looked down the street. “There is Tony 
turning the peanut roaster all alone,” she 
went on. “Do you suppose that his father 
is sick ? He looks cold, with no overcoat, only 
that odd green scarf tied around his neck. I 
can hear the peanut roaster singing right 
through this window, but Tony isn’t a very 
big boy to be tending it all by himself.” 


172 


THANKSGIVING FOR PEANUT ROASTER 173 

“Tony’s father is sick,” Peter replied. 
“He told me about it yesterday when I went 
down to the grocer’s to get the raisins and 
nuts for Grandmother. But Tony knows 
how to roast peanuts very well and he said 
that he was going to keep that roaster sing¬ 
ing every day no matter how long his father 
was sick.” 

“Does Tony know that this is Thanksgiving 
day?” Polly asked. 

“I don’t believe he does,” Peter told her. 
“You see he hasn’t been in America a whole 
year yet and he can’t say all the words of the 
Star Spangled Banner, although he is learn¬ 
ing them. He came from Italy, and he never 
saw apples growing, he told me, until this 
fall.” 

“Then Tony doesn’t know about the first 
Thanksgiving Day,” Polly thought out loud, 
“when the Pilgrims came and had their din¬ 
ner spread out under the trees, and let the 
Indians share it with them.” Polly’s voice 
sounded sorry, for that was one of her favor¬ 
ite stories. 

“No, Tony doesn’t know very much about 
his new country yet,” Peter told her. 

“We could—” Polly began, and then she 



174 


FRIENDLY TALES 


whispered the rest of her thought to Peter. 

“ Yes, we could—” Peter added, and then he 
whispered his thought to Polly. After that 
the two put on their blue coats and their red 
mittens and their blue caps. They went out 
of Grandfather’s front door and then out of 
the front gate. 

After a while it was Thanksgiving dinner 
time. Grandmother’s dining table was all 
dressed up with a bouquet of yellow chrysan¬ 
themums in the center and a bowl of rosy 
apples at one end and a bowl of the nuts and 
oranges and raisins at the other end. In 
came the turkey almost bursting out of his 
crisp brown jacket and with his gravy sizzling 
richly. 

“Dear me!” said Grandmother, “the chil¬ 
dren are not here. Where in the world can 
those two children be?” 

Grandfather put on his spectacles and went 
to the front door. “There is a peanut roaster 
singing all to itself out here in the front yard,” 
he called back to Grandmother. Then, “Here 
are the children,” he said. 

“And they have a strange little boy with 
them,” Grandmother said looking out into the 
blowy weather over Grandfather’s shoulder. 


THANKSGIVING FOR PEANUT ROASTER 175 

Just then Peter and Polly came in bringing 
the little boy whose cheeks were as rosy as the 
apples on the table, his big eyes as brown as 
the nuts and wearing a green scarf instead of 
an overcoat. 

“This is Tony, Grandfather,” Peter ex¬ 
plained, “and he has never had a Thanksgiv¬ 
ing dinner in all his life. I told him that 1 
would watch his peanut roaster while he ate 
some of our turkey.” 

“He doesn’t know what Thanksgiving Day 
is, Grandmother,” said Polly, “our day to be 
thankful for our country. So we just brought 
him in to your house to show him.” 

“Now that is just what I would have done,” 
dear Grandmother told them, “if I hadn’t 
been so busy basting the turkey that I couldn’t 
leave the oven to look out into the street. I 
would have invited Tony in to share our 
Thanksgiving Day. Here is a place for him 
at our table right between you two children.” 

“I will keep an eye on his roaster,” said 
Grandfather. “If anybody wants a bag of 
hot roasted peanuts while Tony is eating his 
turkey I will go out and measure them. ’ ’ 

So they all sat down to dinner, which 
seemed the best they had ever enjoyed, and all 


176 


FRIENDLY TALES 


through it the chestnut roaster sang cheerily 
out in the front yard. There was plenty of 
food and some to spare, and a new little Ameri¬ 
can to share it with them! 


IN CHRISTMAS TOWN 


Y OU never heard of this town, this Christ¬ 
mas Town? No, of course you never 
heard of it and neither had any other child, 
for there was none. This story is about a 
little town so small that it isn’t to be found on 
any geography map, unless perhaps you could 
put your finger on it on that wonderful map 
of Fairyland. And still, at that, it is a real 
town. 

It had all the people living along its narrow 
little lanes that you find in your town. 

There was the old Candle Man, who had 
dipped and colored the candles for going to 
bed by for so many years that he had lost 
his eyesight. He was so old that he couldn’t 
see even the flame of his biggest and roundest 
wax candles. 

There was the Sweets Man, who could make 
striped red and white peppermint candy sticks 
for the children, but he had grown old too, so 
old and lame that he found it difficult to bend 

177 


178 


FRIENDLY TALES 


over his candy kettle to stir the bubbling syrup 
it held. 

And there was the Toy Man in the town, 
but he was very unfortunate, for he knew how 
to make only carved wooden toys, beautifully 
carved little bears and dolls and cuckoo clocks 
and small houses with gables and windows. 
The town was near the woods where he could 
get wood, and far away from the cities where 
one could get wires and wheels for the me¬ 
chanical toys that the children seemed to pre¬ 
fer. So the Toy Man had grown poor. 

And there was a Baker in the town, but he 
had never learned how to make the iced pas¬ 
tries in odd and elaborate shapes which people 
had begun to buy. He was a nice old- 
fashioned Baker who made large currant buns 
and sugar cookies, plain cookies. So the 
Baker had grown poor. 

And it came to be near Christmas time in 
that town. The trees hung sparkling with 
icicles. The lanes were drifted with snow. 
And it seemed as if Santa Claus would be 
obliged to ride right over the chimneys in that 
town, because the mothers and fathers were 
not able to invite him to come down. No one 
complained, but the children did look wist- 


IN CHRISTMAS TOWN 


179 


fully at their stockings every night at bedtime. 

It was a town where everyone thought 
kindly of his neighbor, and where every single 
person loved the children. So the blind old 
Candle Man, who could hear very well, much 
better than some who can see, felt sorry to 
know that there was such a poor prospect for 
Christmas. He didn’t want the children to 
be disappointed. 

So the Candle Man got out his last lump of 
wax, his melting pot, his wicks and his moulds. 
Feeling his way about his shop and working 
as fast as he could, he melted his wax and di¬ 
vided it into portions for making a tiny, tiny 
Christmas candle for every child in town. 
You remember that it wasn’t a very large town. 
And he shaped them beautifully and colored 
them scarlet. Then, just to see if it would 
burn, he carefully lighted one. He would 
know by its heat if it was burning well. 

But a wonderful thing had happened. The 
Candle Man could suddenly see the flame of 
that tiny Christmas candle! 

The Sweets Man had always made sticks of 
Christmas candy for the children, but this 
year his rheumatism was so bad that he 
thought he just couldn’t do it. But then he 


180 


FRIENDLY TALES 


had another thought, how he would hate to 
disappoint them when just one small stick of 
candy would make a child happy! So the 
Sweets Man made up his mind that he would 
forget how lame he felt. He stirred his kettle 
and twisted red and white candy together, 
and then he looked about for his cane. Not 
finding it, he went right on with his twist¬ 
ing, and suddenly he chuckled at what he had 
done. He had made a little red and white 
peppermint candy cane for each of the chil¬ 
dren in town, and he chuckled again and 
danced all about his kitchen at the joke. He 
didn’t feel one bit lame himself. He doubted 
if he needed his cane. But how the children 
would enjoy theirs, he said to himself! 

The Toy Man and his little boy looked about 
the workshop the week before Christmas, but 
he had nothing with which to make toy trains 
or aeroplanes or motor boats. There was only 
some nice, white pine wood there. 

“ Enough for wooden soldiers and little 
dolls!” suggested the Toy Man’s little boy. 
“And I could carry them to the children on 
Christmas Eve,” he added. 

That was an idea! Straight, red-coated 
wooden soldiers for every small boy in town, 


IN CHRISTMAS TOWN 


181 


and straight, blue-eyed wooden dolls for all 
the small girls in town. The Toy Man went 
right to work, his little boy helping him by 
painting the red coats for the soldiers, and 
the blue eyes for the dolls. 

The Baker and his little girl looked about 
the bake-shop the day before Christmas. 
There was plenty of flour, but not enough 
sugar for fancy cakes. And they knew how a 
child enjoys having a special kind of treat 
from the bake-shop on Christmas Day. 

“Cookies!’’ cried the Baker’s little girl at 
last, “ plain cookies, so that we can give one 
to each of the children.” 

“The very idea I had in mind!” said the 
Baker. “Cookies cut in the shape of little 
Christmas trees! ’ 9 And he got out his mixing 
bowl, while his little girl helped him by cut¬ 
ting out the Christmas cookies to be baked 
crisp and sugary. 

Then it was Christmas Eve and Santa 
Claus, driving a fine span of reindeers, rode 
by overhead and could be heard on the roofs 
of that far-away little town. He stopped at 
every chimney, calling down it, “Merry 
Christmas to Christmas Town!” 

And it was just that, a Christmas place. 


182 


FRIENDLY TALES 


Everybody bad given of bis own, and in tbe 
giving bad been blessed. Tbe Candle Man 
could see. Tbe Sweets Man could laugb at bis 
lameness. Tbe children were tbe happiest of 
all with their brave wooden soldiers, tbe 
straight little dolls, and tbe sugary cookies 
cut in tbe shape of Christmas trees! 

That was when Christmas Town began, 
when it first found its place on tbe map of 
Fairyland. Ever since then grown-folks and 
little-folks have been trying to find it. But 
it is not so very far away. 


CHRISTMAS TREE FRIENDS 


L ITTLE SPRUCE should have been 
very, very happy indeed that he had 
been chosen from all the other evergreens in 
the wood patch to be the Christmas tree. But 
instead, Little Spruce was very, very un¬ 
happy. And this was because he loved his 
own small wood patch so dearly and because 
he had so many outdoor friends from whom he 
was sorry to part. 

“You will be the Christmas tree!” Dwarf 
Pop-Corn had said to Little Spruce in the fall, 
speaking in his small, rustling voice. “I feel 
it in my husks. You are so green, so straight, 
and so thick. When it is Christmas Eve you 
will stand in a great, bright room with 
spangled fairies among your branches. That 
will be fine!” 

“I don’t want any spangled fairies,” Little 
Spruce rustled back, “I like you.” 

“Ah, now you will hold Christmas candles 
in your twigs; they have grown long enough 
for that,” whispered the friendly little bay- 

183 




184 


FRIENDLY TALES 


berry bush that grew at the Spruce’s roots, 
“red, green, and yellow candles. You will 
shine grandly.” 

“I don’t want any red and green and yel¬ 
low candles,” Little Spruce whispered back. 
“I would rather see the fireflies’ light when 
they make a crown for your head.” 

“When Christmas comes, Little Spruce,” j 
rustled the apple tree from the neighboring 
orchard, “you will be hung with glass balls 
of all the colors of the rainbow we see in our 
sky after a storm. You never saw such orna¬ 
ments as will cover you!” 

“But I don’t wish to be decorated,” moaned 
the Spruce tree, “I have always thought that 
I should love to carry red apples among my 
branches, but I don’t care a bit for glass balls. 
Suppose I were to drop one and break it!” 

“They often trim a Christmas tree with 
colored paper flowers,” said the humble ever¬ 
lasting blossoms that grew in the earth at the 
roots of the Little Spruce. “They make 
bunches of them, very small and very prettily 
colored, and hide them deeply among the 
branches from which they peep out and show 
their brightness.” 


CHRISTMAS TREE FRIENDS 185 

“How much nicer you are than any paper 
flowers, so brave now that the cold has come!” 
was the answer of the Little Spruce as the 
winter wind blew through him and a few 
snowflakes powdered his head. And that was 
the last that the wood patch heard him say, 
for he was cut down and carried into the 
house. What they had guessed was now come 
true. The Little Spruce was the Christmas 
tree! 

They planted him neatly in a green wood 
tub in the center of the room, and then they 
closed the door and pulled the curtains close 
as they trimmed him, so that he might be a 
beautiful surprise to the mother and father. 
The children were trimming the Christmas 
tree, but he pretended that he could not see 
them, and he curled up his twigs, and when¬ 
ever he had a chance he scratched them. 
Poor Little Spruce, who was so lonely for the 
friends he had left in the wood patch! 

But he knew what they were doing. They 
twined his unwilling branches with silver and 
gold cobwebs and they gave him candles to 
hold, they hung balls to his twigs and tucked 
bunches of flowers in the deep green that grew 



186 


FRIENDLY TALES 


about his straight brown trunk. The chil¬ 
dren’s hands were soft and their laughter was 
like the chiming of Christmas bells. 

“How surprised they will be!” exclaimed 
the children. “How beautiful the tree 
looks!” 

“That’s all you know about it,” creaked the 
dry branches of the Little Spruce. “I never 
grew to hold spangled fairies or red candles 
or glass balls or colored flowers. ’ ’ 

“Of course you never did, so here I am!” 

Who was speaking? It was Christmas 
night and the candles were lighted, although 
the mother and father had not yet been 
brought into the room. The Christmas tree 
had heard that voice before. He bent his 
head a little to look at the white chains that 
draped his branches, like strings of big pearls, 
from top to roots. “You surely don’t feel 
lonely with your old friend, Dwarf Pop-Corn, 
twining about you,” went on the merry voice 
which was so familiar. 

Yes, they were festoons of pop-corn which 
the Christmas tree held! 

A faint fragrance that he remembered came 
to the Christmas tree, and a light like that of 


CHRISTMAS 'TREE FRIENDS 187 

the summer fireflies. Oh, they were bay- 
berry candles, made by the children from his 
friendly bayberry bush which lighted his 
branches! 

How heavy the glass balls were! But they 
were not glass balls at all, but fat, red candied 
apples from his own neighbor, the apple tree 
out in the orchard, that were hung upon the 
Christmas tree. All his life he had wished 
that he might bear apples! 

“And here we are,” came dry, laughing 
little voices from the hidden places of the tree. 
Brightly dyed bunches of friendly everlasting 
blossoms decorated the Christmas tree. The 
children had gathered them from his own 
wood patch and had dyed them scarlet and 
tied them with ribbons and given them to the 
Christmas tree to hold. 

The tree stretched his branches out as 
widely and proudly as he knew how, and just 
in time, for the door opened and the children 
brought in the mother and father. 

“Is it not beautiful!” they shouted, “just 
as it stood in the woods, and with its friends 
about it!” 

And that is what the mother and father 


188 


FRIENDLY TALES 


thought too, for the gift of Christmas is the 
old made new, if it be only a rosy apple made 
sweet with love, or the shining of a home made 
candle to light the coming of the Babe of 
Bethlehem. 


SANTA CLAUS AT PATCH TTTT.T, 


4 fTlHERE isn’t any Santa Claus,” Jimmy 
1 said from his nine years of wisdom to 
his little sister, Jane. “Of course mothers 
and fathers and one’s relatives are kind of 
Santa Clauses, but if you think there is any 
such old chap as that in your picture book, 
why—” Jimmy’s words failed him as he 
looked over Jane’s shoulder at her tattered, 
taken-to-bed copy of “The Night Before 
Christmas” that she held open so lovingly in 
the twilight of this Christmas Eve. 

Jane’s eyes dimmed as if there were tears in 
them. She had a great deal of respect for 
Jimmy’s opinion in all things, but she had 
listened every Christmas Eve that she could 
remember for Santa Claus’ sleigh bells. 
Even if he had come but seldom to their little 
house on the scrubby hill that was known as 
Patch Hill, because its houses were so shabby, 
and its children so patched, still there had 
been the fun of expecting him. 

“No sleigh, Jimmy V 1 she asked sadly. 

189 


190 


FRIENDLY TALES 


“If he came at all he’d have a motor car or 
an airship these days,” Jimmy told her. 

“No presents, except your stockings that 
mother is knitting and my mittens; nothing 
that we don’t expect?” Jane went on. 

“I don’t see where they could come from,” 
Jimmy said with discouragement in his voice. 
“We can’t go to the Community House 
Christmas tree this year, because my measles 
card isn’t off our house yet, even if I am all 
well.” 

“No reindeer?” Jane did not need an an¬ 
swer to this question for she knew in her own 
sensible little mind that no team of prancing 
reindeer had ever been seen on Patch Hill, 
not in the memory of the oldest inhabitant. 
“But, Jimmy,” she went on, her face bright¬ 
ening, “we have a Christmas tree. Just look 
out at it, all covered with snow stars!” 

Jimmy went over to the window and stood 
beside Jane, looking out. Yes, Jane was 
right. Theirs was the only front yard on 
Patch Hill with a tree, and it was, by some 
magic of the earth, a Christmas tree, a little 
green pine. 

All the year their pine tree was green, and 
if it did get dingy from the factory smoke, the 


SANTA CLAUS AT PATCH HILL 191 

rain always washed it. In the summer the 
pine tree was gay with sparrows, and in the 
winter it sang in the wind. Now its scraggly 
arms stretched straight out toward the chil¬ 
dren. Even without lights or gifts, the pine 
looked cheerful and Christmas like. Looking 
at it, Jimmy suddenly exclaimed. 

i ‘What’s that!” 

“ Ssh!” Jane said. “It’s a reindeer!” she 
whispered. “Oh, Jimmy, one of Santa 
Claus’ reindeer right in our yard, right under 
our Christmas tree!” 

Jimmy ought to have been able to tell Jane 
that she was dreaming, but he couldn’t. He 
pinched himself, but that made no difference. 
There certainly was a small brown reindeer 
out in their grubby yard on Patch Hill, nib¬ 
bling daintily from their little pine tree. He 
looked toward the children in the dusk of the 
window with great dark eyes that seemed to be 
seeing wonders. 

“Please don’t!” Jimmy begged mother as 
she started to light the lamp. So she joined 
the children, as amazed as they. 

“Strange things happen on Christmas 
Eve,” she told them after she had gone softly 
to the door and seen the plain marks of the 



192 


FRIENDLY TALES 


reindeer’s hoofs in the snow. “Go to bed, my 
lambs, and who knows but the good Saint of 
Christmas will really come to us while you 
sleep.” 

So they three ate supper in the dark and 
looked out once more at the little deer who 
looked back at them and then started toward 
the town as if he were going down to be har¬ 
nessed with the others to Santa Claus’ sleigh. 
And one bright star rose in the east and shone 
down on the little empty pine tree on Patch 
Hill. 

Empty ? Oh, but it was not empty for long. 
JWhen Jimmy and Jane were asleep the 
Christmas helpers of Santa Claus came as 
softly as fairies, led by Santa Claus himself 
and trimmed it. Rosy apples, some bright 
lollipops, groceries for mother, a box that held 
a doll for Jane, a box that held a game for 
Jimmy, love for the whole family glowing in 
every one of the lights fastened to the 
branches. The Community House children 
came in the evening with their Story-Lady, 
who had as much kindness always in her heart 
as Santa Claus has. The Community House 
didn’t want Jimmy and Jane to go without 
Christmas when it could be brought to them. 


SANTA CLAUS AT PATCH HILL 193 

The children met the reindeer as they went 
softly np Patch Hill, and they were careful 
not to frighten him. It was so wonderful to 
have a real deer going so fearlessly among the 
streets of a smoky town on Christmas Eye 
that no one took him back to the Park where 
he lived before he ran away. They let him 
keep right on his Christmas way to the forest 
that lay to the north. 

And there, on Christmas morning, was the 
little pine tree in the front yard on Patch Hill 
looking more beautiful than it had ever ex¬ 
pected to. Jimmy and Jane could scarcely 
believe the wonder of it until they went out 
and took down its gifts. The snow had cov¬ 
ered the footprints of Santa Claus and his 
reindeer, but even Jimmy could see them quite 
plainly. 

So can you, or any other child, with hands 
for giving and eyes with which to see at 
blessed Christmas time. 


THE HORSE WHO HUNG UP HIS 

SHOE 


u \TO time to stop,” puffed Old Jimmy, 
the Post Office horse, as he pulled at 
the shafts of the delivery wagon. “ You don’t 
need to even take the whip out of the socket. 
I guess I know my duty by this time,” and 
Old Jimmy did not even so much as turn his 
head as he passed the street cart of the Apple 
Woman. 

“I know it,” said Posty, his great coat 
buttoned up to his ears as he sat behind Old 
Jimmy and drove. “I know that you know 
it is Christmas Eve, and this Post Office cart 
is loaded with boxes of candy and boxes 
of books and big dolls and hobby horses and 
games and clocks and new slippers and dress¬ 
ing gowns and writing paper and little red 
wagons and a bicycle and a few other things, 
every one of which has got to be left at a front 
door before Christmas Eve is over. Get up, 
Old Jimmy!” 


194 


THE HORSE WHO HUNG UP HIS SHOE 195 

Old Jimmy plodded on as fast as lie could 
through the snowy street. He had been draw¬ 
ing Posty’s mail cart for ten years now and 
he could not remember when it had been so 
heavy on Christmas Eve. This might have 
been because he was an older horse now, his 
piebald back steaming with sweat as he 
strained at the harness and his feet slipping 
in the slush. There had been Christmas Eves, 
Old Jimmy remembered, when he and Posty 
were invited to stop for a moment at the 
places where they left gifts, Posty for a cup 
of hot coffee, and Old Jimmy for an apple or 
a doughnut. 

But the City had grown so! Even an old 
horse understood that it wasn’t safe to stop 
long in the street now with so many automo¬ 
biles about, or possible with such a heavy load 
of gifts to be delivered. Tug, pull, strain, 
plod, on went Old Jimmy, tired, willing, good! 
He never stopped to think of his feelings. 

Here, in the light of the street lamps was the 
Market. Old Jimmy lifted his head and 
sniffed hungrily at the pleasant odors from 
the stalls. Carrots, turnips, grain, more 
apples, all these the delivery horse could smell, 
but he knew in his wise old head that they 


196 


FRIENDLY TALES 


were not his carrots and turnips and grain 
and apples. 

“No supper for me until I deliver these 
things!” wheezed Old Jimmy as he plodded 
on. 

Here, all at once in a blaze of light on the 
Common, was the Tree festooned with its 
colored bulbs and on the tip of it, reaching 
up to meet the light of the Christmas star, was 
the Tree’s own star. Slowing up a bit, Old 
Jimmy sniffed at the fresh, country smell of 
the evergreen. Pine trees, on the edge of a 
wild pasture somewhere out in the country, 
and a chance to kick up his heels and run in 
among them, or graze in the pasture grass! 
This was Old Jimmy’s Christmas dream, but 
he heard Posty’s, “Get up, Old Jimmy!” so he 
tugged on. 

“No rest for me on Christmas Eve until 
I deliver these things,” thought Old Jimmy. 

Now they stopped at houses and for a sec¬ 
ond, through the windows, saw laughing 
shouting children. Old Jimmy could fancy 
their warm little hands tugging at his mane 
as they rode him through some hayfield. 
Old Jimmy liked children. 

He and Posty could see red apples hung on 


THE HORSE WHO HUNG UP HIS SHOE 197 

Trees of Light, steaming coffee and cakes on 
Christmas Eve supper tables, baskets of veg¬ 
etables in kitchens waiting to be cooked for 
Christmas dinners. Old Jimmy’s mouth 
watered, but he took his bit more firmly be¬ 
tween his teeth and plodded on. 

“No Christmas stocking for you,” said 
Posty, chuckling as he slapped Old Jimmy’s 
broad back with the reins, “but I hung up one 
of your old shoes above the Post Office door.” 

Old Jimmy pricked up his ears and went 
on a little faster. The cart was empty and he 
knew that he was on the way home now, to 
the stable back of the Post Office. He was 
cold and hungry and his bones ached, but he 
had done his Christmas share for the City. 
And Posty would give him his oats as soon as 
he came home. Old Jimmy cantered a little 
and whinnied. 

“Hung up my shoe, did you, Posty!” puffed 
Old Jimmy, “Much good that will do us, but 
here’s to a Merry Christmas to the others!” 

Just then they turned the Post Office corner 
and Old Jimmy came into the Square with a 
flourish that would have done credit to a colt. 
The others, his friends, were there; Whitey, 
the Gray, the young bloods that the police rode 


198 


FRIENDLY TALES 


and who thought themselves above the Post 
Office horses, all of them. In the center of 
Post Office Square, near the door above which 
Old Jimmy’s shoe hung, stood Santa Claus! 
Yes, sir, there stood Santa Claus himself, and 
he was giving out oats and large, juicy carrots, 
and big red apples, as many as they could eat, 
to the horses. It was Christmas Eve for them, 
these City horses, whether they dragged heavy 
mail carts or were the steeds of the police. 
Nose to nose, the horses were being fed by 
Santa Claus. 

“Hung up my shoe, did you, Posty!” whin¬ 
nied Old Jimmy as he bit into his fourth red 
apple and crunched it joyously, “Suppose you 
hadn ? t, my friend ? Suppose you hadn’t! ” 


MOLLY ANN’S VALENTINES 


u li/TOLLY ANN, my dear,” said Molly 
Ann to the little girl in the looking 
glass, “yon can’t send a single lacy, heart 
valentine to anyone you love this year, be¬ 
cause there are none in the general store here 
in Green Acres. And you want to cry, be¬ 
cause you are lonesome for mother so far 
away in the hospital, and—” 

But before Molly Ann could say anything 
more, the looking-glass child spoke to her, 
“But you are not going to cry, Molly Ann, and 
you are going to send some valentines. ’ ’ 

“Oh, how do you know that?” asked Molly 
Ann. So the looking-glass child told her just 
how to do it. 

Valentine’s Day at grandmother’s house at 
Green Acres was a blowy, snowy day. The old 
gentleman who drove the rural free delivery 
nag swung his arms to try and get warm and 
wished that his route were ended when he 
came to grandmother’s tin post box. But 
there, on top of the box and labelled on a red 

199 



200 


FRIENDLY TALES 


paper heart, “For the Postman,” was a 
thermos bottle of hot chocolate and some thick 
ham sandwiches. There was a big, red apple, 
too, with a little red heart tied to it that said, 
“A Valentine for the Horse.” 

“The best valentines we ever had,” called 
old Posty to the little girl who smiled at him as 
he drank his chocolate, peering around the 
gate post. 

The valentine doves, fluffy in their gray 
coats and dainty in their pink shoes, wished 
that they had not flown to Grandmother’s gar¬ 
den from their warm loft in Farmer Brown’s 
barn. But there was Molly Ann in her scar¬ 
let cape and hood, a real valentine child, scat¬ 
tering the fattest kernels of red corn that the 
doves had seen all winter. The kernels were 
almost the shape of red hearts. “Coo-roo, coo- 
roo,” the doves sang to her in thanks for her 
loving gift. 

Old Mr. Briggs sat behind the counter of 
the general store looking cross. “Here comes 
another child to ask me if I have any valen¬ 
tines and I shall have to tell her all over 
again,” he said to himself, “that my rheuma¬ 
tism wouldn’t let me go to town to buy any 


MOLLY ANN’S VALENTINES 201 

this year. No,” he began as Molly Ann, her 
red cloak flying, ran into the store. 

“Oh, yes, please,” she begged as she took 
from under her arm the warm red muffler she 
had knitted with grandmother’s help, “please 
wear it. I made it nice and thick, and grand¬ 
mother says that red worsted is very good for 
rheumatism.” 

“Bless the child, it is,” said old Mr. Briggs, 
winding the muffler around his neck and reach¬ 
ing for his glass jar of red and white pepper¬ 
mint hearts, “It looks like a new kind of a 
valentine.” 

“It is,” smiled back Molly Ann. 

Mother was better on Saint Valentine’s Day. 
She sat in the sun room of the hospital and 
wishing for Molly Ann. All at once Molly 
Ann’s valentine came. It had no lace or any 
doves on it, but it was a neatly written letter 
with a border of crosses for kisses. It told 
about Molly Ann’s kind thought of all the 
valentine people, the old postman, the doves, 
the horse, and the storekeeper. It ended in a 
real valentine way, “I love you, mother, 
dear,” said Molly Ann, who could make her 
own valentines. 



THE MAN WHO MADE GIANTS 


H IS little girl, Bianca, was in Terry’s 
class in school. An odd, dark, little 
creature was Bianca, who knew very few Eng¬ 
lish words, and wore yellow socks, a patched 
orange frock, and a red kerchief tied about 
her dark hair. Pew of the little girls spoke 
to Bianca and most of the boys followed their 
example, at least until the day when Terry 
found Bianca crying in the school yard at re¬ 
cess. 

“What’s the matter, Kid*?” Terry asked. 
Pie was Bianca’s age, eight, but, being an 
American boy, he felt older. Bianca didn’t 
mind the “kid.” She just wanted somebody 
to tell her trouble to, even this boy. 

“My father,” she said. “Sick.” 

“Well, then,” Terry decided for her, “get 
the doctor.” 

Bianca looked all about to see that no one 

heard. Then she explained. “My father— 

hungry,” she told Terry. 

Terry looked sympathetic. “That is too 

202 






THE MAN WHO MADE GIANTS 203 

bad,” he said. Then he offered Bianca his 
two thick egg sandwiches. “Have some 
lunch,” he told her, wondering in his kind 
heart if the father’s sickness might not have 
affected the little girl too. How Bianca did 
eat! Watching her, Terry planned. 

“This is my mother’s baking day,” he told 
Bianca, “pies, doughnuts, cookies, everything. 
You wait for me after school and I will take 
you home with me, and I just guess your eyes 
will pop out of your head when you see the 
basket my mother will pack up for your 
father.” 

“And then you will go home with me?” 
Bianca asked. 

“Sure thing!” Terry promised. 

It was a wonder basket. When Terry’s 
mother understood about Bianca, that there 
was no mother at home, and just where they 
lived, and how ill the father was in this new 
land, she put things in the basket of which 
Terry had not thought, cold meat, butter, and 
eggs. The two children, followed at a safe 
distance by Terry’s father’s hired man, took 
the basket between them and started. They 
could hardly carry such a heavy basket. 

“Here we are!” Bianca said happily as they 


204 


FRIENDLY TALES 


turned a corner and came out in an odd, nar¬ 
row side street. The sidewalks were banked 
with push-carts of many kinds of things for 
sale; oranges, furs, shining tinware, even flags, 
for it was February, the month of flags. 
Queer little shops lined the street. Long fes¬ 
toons of spaghetti hung in one, trays of fat 
cakes showed in another. Bianca stopped at 
what had once been a stable, opened the door, 
and led Terry into the dark interior. 

4 ‘Giants!” Terry exclaimed, looking at the 
great white figures, shrouded in sheets, that 
stood about the room. “You didn’t tell me, 
Bianca, that you lived in a house of giants.” 
They had entered a fearsome place. 

The giants were crouched there ready to 
spring, some of them were as tall as the ceiling, 
all of them were mysterious and terrifying. 

Bianca’s merry laugh filled the place. 4 ‘ My 
father,” she explained, taking Terry to a couch 
in the corner where a very thin, pale man 
lay. “He makes giants, marble, bronze—but 
now he is so sick.” She bent tenderly over 
the quiet form and put a thermos bottle of 
broth to his lips. The man drank, breathed 
more easily, smiled then at Terry. 


THE MAN WHO MADE GIANTS 


205 


“American!” he exclaimed, “Grazia , thank 
you! Come again and I show you my great¬ 
est American giant.’’ 

“Thank you, sir,” Terry said, hacking to¬ 
ward the door and deciding, as he looked at 
all those sheeted figures, that he would come 
only as far as the door with Bianca after this. 
He was going to keep on helping this man, 
though. Mother, he knew, would want him 
to. 

So all the rest of the week Terry helped 
Bianca carry a basket of food to the house of 
the giants, so strange and tucked away there 
on the little Italian street. He left her at the 
door always, and soon the maker of the giants 
came to the threshold to thank him. He was 
well of his hunger. 

Then Lincoln’s birthday came, and in the 
morning Terry’s mother looked very smiling 
and as if she had a secret. 

“We have front seats on the grand stand in 
the park,” she told him, “here is a large flag 
for you, Terry. You will need it.” 

So Terry and mother went down to the city 
park, and who did they see in a seat beside 
them but Bianca! She, too, had an American 




206 


FRIENDLY TALES 


flag. But Terry’s happiness was chilled sud¬ 
denly, for there, in the center of the park, was 
one of the giants, still wrapped in its white 
sheet. Bianca seemed pleased. She pointed 
to it, clapping her hands as the Legion formed 
around its platform, the band started, and, 
how wonderful, her father took the cord that 
would pull away the sheet! 

‘ < The great Lincoln! ’ ’ Bianca exclaimed as 
the cloth wrappings of the gigantic bronze 
statue of Lincoln rolled away and showed the 
tall, brave figure of our great American. How 
the people applauded and shouted! How 
proud the young sculptor, Bianca’s father, 
looked! 

“My father had made the statue,” Bianca 
told Terry, “then he almost starved.” 

“And we all wondered about the giants you 
spoke of, Terry,” mother told him. “The 
hired man had a glimpse of them too, so father 
and some of his friends discovered this won¬ 
derful statue of Lincoln. The city has bought 
it.” 

“Well,” Terry said, settling back to listen 
to the speeches, “I helped some with this Lin¬ 
coln’s Birthday.” 


THE MAN WHO MADE GIANTS 


207 


“I should say you did, son/’ mother told 
him. “You held out your kind American 
hand to a stranger in distress, as Lincoln did 
in his greater way.” 



THE COACH IN THE FOREST 


I T had been a long winter in the little log 
cabin on the Maryland road where Ethan 
lived. It had snowed and hailed and then 
snowed again. It had melted and then frozen 
until the road wasn’t a road at all there in 
front of the cabin, but so full of deep ruts that 
no team could pass. No team had tried the 
road, though, in weeks and weeks although 
Ethan had pressed a cold nose against the 
cabin window and hoped someone would pass. 
There were great doings in the town of Phila¬ 
delphia to which the road led. Liberty Bell 
had been hung and pealed for our country’s 
freedom, and there was a president of the 
Colonies, Mr. George Washington, the soldier 
and farmer of Virginia. 

It seemed to Ethan as if someone would be 
driving by on the way to that wonderful town 
of Philadelphia. 

If Ethan had stopped to think of it, he 

would have felt lonely but he was much too 

208 






THE COACH IN THE FOREST 


209 


busy. Firewood had to be split and brought 
in to keep the brick oven hot for baking bread 
and the fire red for boiling porridge in the big 
iron pot that hung on the crane. No matter 
how cold it was, the cow and the horse had to 
be fed and watered. And there was always 
work to be done on the road. There was no 
railway, no telephone, no telegraph in those old 
days and the only way Ethan’s father and 
mother, and the other fathers and mothers in 
the Colonies could know what was going on, 
was by means of the men on horseback known 
as the post-riders who sometimes galloped by. 

The road must be kept open for the post¬ 
riders. 

That was why, one morning in late winter, 
a great many years ago, Ethan’s father took 
down his axe from the place where it hung be¬ 
side the cabin door and put on his fur cap 
and his muffler. “I’m going to cut a new 
piece of road through our woods,” he told 
Ethan. “Then the teams can get through by 
a cross-cut this spring. They will never be 
able to pass by the road. The mud will be 
up to the hubs of the wheels. ’ ’ 

“I’ll help, father,” Ethan said, putting on 
his fur cap and his muffler too. ‘ ‘ I can gather 





210 


FRIENDLY TALES 


up the brush as you cut it and bring it home 
to be burned.” 

You see Ethan was a real pioneer boy, ready 
to help with whatever came to his hand to do, 
and he knew that a good road is the first thing 
to try and make in a growing country. With¬ 
out good roads no food, or news, or soldiers 
can pass. 

So Ethan and father and some other men 
and boys from the cabins along the forest way 
worked hard to make a short-cut through the 
woods. The boys cut out the small brush with 
their big jackknives and carried it away. 
Soon the road looked clear, although there 
were still rocks and stumps along it. The 
larger boys whistled as they worked to keep 
their courage up, but Ethan dreamed. What 
did he dream ? 

There were very few books in his cabin, but 
there was one that had a beautiful picture in 
it of a king’s coach. Ethan had never seen a 
coach like the one in the picture, painted in 
cream and gold, with four fat horses and 
riders in white and gold livery, in his life. He 
knew there was no such coach in the Colonies, 
but as he helped break the new road, he 


THE COACH IN THE FOREST 211 

dreamed that he was making the way ready 
for a king’s chariot like that one to pass safely 
by. It would be worth a long, lonely winter, 
he thought, to see such a wonderful turnout. 

At last the path through the forest was fin¬ 
ished, and just in time, for the rains set in. 
How it did pour, washing in torrents by the 
cabin and keeping Ethan indoors for days! 
But the sun shone at last and he went out in 
his rubber boots early one morning to look at 
the new forest road. 

At the entrance to the woods, Ethan stood 
still and rubbed his eyes. He knew that he 
wasn’t dreaming, but there in the road he had 
helped clear was the king’s coach of his pic¬ 
ture. The body and the wheels were cream- 
colored with beautiful gold trimmings. The 
body was on leather straps that rested on iron 
springs to make it comfortable, and there were 
neat green blinds and black leather curtains 
that shut it in like a little castle. On the high 
front seat of the coach sat two men in cream 
and gold liveries, and there were two more men 
on the high back seat. Four fat horses in gilt 
harness pulled this coach, at least they were 
supposed to pull it. But Ethan saw that the 


212 


FRIENDLY TALES 


coach was stuck in the mud and stumps and 
rocks of the road through the forest. It was 
too heavy for the road. 

Ethan ran back as fast as he could to the 
cabin. 

“ A king’s coach is stuck in the forest road,” 
he told his father. 

His father went to look at it, and then he 
took the big brass kettle to the door of the 
cabin and pounded on it with a mallet. That 
called the men and boys from the nearby cab¬ 
ins. They came running and when they found 
out what was the matter they brought ropes 
and stout poles, and they went at the work of 
pulling the fine coach out of the mire. 

It was hard work, and it took some time. 
Everybody helped, the men in livery who rode 
it, the pioneer men from the cabins, and Ethan 
tugging and pulling with all his small might at 
the wheels sunk so deep in the road. But it 
moved at last. The horses started, the wheels 
turned, the servants took their places again, 
and one of the green blinds opened to show 
Ethan the king inside. 

He wore his hair powdered and gathered be¬ 
hind in a large silk bag to keep it white until 
he reached Philadelphia. He had on beauti- 


THE COACH IN THE FOREST 


213 


ful yellow gloves and silk velvet breeches and 
coat. His cocked hat had a long black feather 
on the rim and he wore silver buckles on his 
shoes and carried a silver handled sword. 
There were lace ruffles on his shirt. 

This, then, was a king, Ethan thought. The 
man thanked everyone very kindly. He scat¬ 
tered silver among them and then he pulled 
from his pocket the largest silver watch that 
Ethan had ever seen and looked at it. 

“I shall reach the Congress in good time,” 
he said. 44 There may still be time for setting 
mj watch at Goodman Clark’s clock-shop in 
Philadelphia as I planned.” He waved his 
hand to Ethan and the coach rumbled on. 

“A king!” exclaimed Ethan looking at his 
hands, sore from pulling the ropes. 

4 4 President Washington! ’ ’ exclaimed his 
father looking with wonder at the coach, now 
so small in the distance. 4 4 George Washing¬ 
ton, on his way to Philadelphia!” 

44 But it was a king’s coach!” said Ethan. 

4 4 It was given to him by the King of 
France,” Ethan’s father told the little boy, 
4 4 for Mr. Washington has much traveling to 
do and he needs it. ’ ’ 

“And we made a way for him!” Ethan 



214 


FRIENDLY TALES 


gasped. It was like a story, but then you 
never can tell what wonderful things will hap¬ 
pen when a new road makes its brave way 
through a forest. 


RAISING THE FLAG 


“T WISH I were a soldier, and could march 

J_ in the parade tomorrow,” Hamlin said 
the night before Washington’s Birthday. 

Father looked up from the newspaper in 
which he had been reading the line of march of 
the patriotic parade. “It will form at the 
armory, ’ ’ he said. ‘ ‘ That means that it ought 
to pass by our house at ten o’clock promptly. 
There is something that you can do to keep 
Washington’s Birthday, Hamlin, even if you 
are not old enough to wear a uniform—it is 
something, too, that you were not big enough to 
do last year.” 

“What, father?” Hamlin’s eyes were wide 
open and shining. 

“Raise our flag,” his father said, “I have 
to take a very early train in the morning to get 
to Chicago on business. I have to see some 
men even if it is a holiday. So, you pull up 
the flag right after breakfast, son. That will 
be doing something for your country, for it 

215 


216 


FRIENDLY TALES 


will be a fine sight flying there on the front 
lawn when the parade goes by.” 

“All right; I will.” Hamlin was proud of 
this trust as he gave his promise. It was a 
long and a steady pull to get the great flag 
safely up to the top of the tall pole, and he 
was glad to do it. He dreamed about it that 
night, thinking that he pulled the rope too 
hard and it twisted just as the bugles of the 
parade started. It woke him up, and it was 
time to get up. Hamlin ate a hurried break¬ 
fast and went to raise the flag. 

Although it was so early, there were soldiers 
passing the house ready to muster at the ar¬ 
mory. As they saw Hamlin with the flag rope 
in his hands they saluted Old Glory. It made 
him feel that he was really doing something 
important to keep Washington’s Birthday. 
He w T ound the rope around his hands so that 
it would not slip; then he began pulling slowly 
and carefully as his father always did. 

As if it were alive, the folded flag opened its 
stripes, showed its stars, and slowly rose up, 
up—then something happened. There was a 
quick tug of the rope, a sound of snapping 
strands. The flag dropped to the ground, for 
the rope had broken. 


RAISING THE FLAG 


217 


Only a little time now until the soldiers 
marched by and the Brewster’s flag, that had 
flown on every holiday since Hamlin Brew¬ 
ster ’s father was his age, lying on the ground! 
What should he do, Hamlin asked himself % 
It couldn’t lie there like a disgrace to George 
Washington. He must do something. At 
last he had an idea. 

“Mother,” Hamlin said, dashing into the 
house, “the flag rope has broken, hut the stores 
will be open down town until ten o’clock, and 
I think that I can splice the rope if I have 
a new one, the way I saw the Boy Scouts doing. 
If you will give me the money, I will go and 
get a new rope. I’ll ride my roller coaster to 
save time.” 

He rolled off like the wind, for it was down 
grade all the way. He knew he could make 
the trip quickly. He was just thinking how 
near he was to the store district when the 
coaster snapped, veered, and tumbled the little 
boy off. One wheel had broken right off. To 
add to this trouble, Hamlin had a badly 
bumped head and a skinned knee. He was 
dizzy and sore. 

But he got up bravely. He stood the 
broken coaster behind a tree where he could 


218 


FRIENDLY TALES 


get it when he had time and he went on, his 
bunrped head feeling like a whirligig, and his 
knee paining with every step. 

“I’ve got to get that rope, and be home, and 
raise the flag by ten o ’clock, ’ ’ Hamlin said over 
and over to himself, and strange to say, he 
felt better as he repeated it. He reached the 
hardware store at last and asked for the length 
of rope. The man behind the counter was so 
busy that Hamlin had to repeat his words. 
Then the man spoke, “Sorry, son,” he said, 
“but you ought to have thought of the rope 
yesterday. It is in my cellar behind a lot of 
barrels. I am open only until ten, and here 
are all these customers to be attended to. I 
have no boy, and I have a lot of nails to weigh 
out in small packages.” 

Hamlin wanted to cry, but instead he said, 
“Could I help?” 

The man thought a moment. i 1 If you could 
deliver a few orders,” he said, “and weigh 
some of these nails, maybe I could go down 
cellar for that rope.” 

“I’ll try,” Hamlin said with pluck. 

The nails were hard and sharp* They cut 
his hands as he took them out of the keg and 
put them into the scales. He looked at the 


i 


RAISING THE FLAG 


219 


clock as he started out with some parcels. 
Nine fifteen; only three quarters of an hour 
before the parade would go by his house, and 
his knee was bleeding now where the worst 
scratch was. He tied it up with his handker¬ 
chief, and hustled. 

When he came back, there was a coil of 
strong, white rope on the counter waiting for 
him. “There you are, sonny,’’ the man said. 
“No, you keep that money. You have earned 
the rope all right.” 

Nine forty-five now. There was not a 
chance in the world that Hamlin could get the 
flag up in time, but he ran all of the way home, 
reaching the front gate at ten. And there 
were no signs of the parade yet! 

If the splicing of the rope shouldn’t work, 
he couldn’t go up the pole to put on a whole 
new rope. But it did work. And the parade 
was late. The flare of bugles and the roar of 
the drums came down the street. Then came 
the brave lines of the parade, just as the Brew¬ 
ster’s Old Glory climbed the flag pole and flew 
out to greet the soldiers. And it was the first 
flag on their line of march, and every soldier 
saluted it, and some of them smiled at the lit¬ 
tle boy who stood up on the gate and waved to 
them, 


MIXED EASTER EGGS 


N OT broken and mixed in a bowl with an 
egg beater; ok, no! But bow could eggs 
come to be mixed any other way ? Ah, that is 
the story, and a very nice one too, all about 
the four little Plummers and their hen, Short- 
Legs, and the Toy Man, and ever so many other 
things. So here it begins. 

You see Short-Legs had been quite busy lay¬ 
ing eggs all Easter week until there were 
six, round, white, fat fresh eggs in Mother 
Plummer’s basket out in the woodshed. And 
she said, as she looked at them, 
u There are just enough of these eggs for 
our family for Easter morning. I shall go 
without the egg money from Mrs. De Lancy 
this week and dye all six of these eggs as a 
surprise for the children and father.” 

Cut-cut-ca-da-cut! said Short-Legs in the 
door yard just then as if she had meant them 
to be Easter eggs when she laid them. So 

when Junior, and Jane, and Bunny, and Pre- 

220 


MIXED EASTER EGGS 


221 


cious Plummer were all at school Mother 
Plummer got out her calico piece bag, tied up 
the eggs in bright colored pieces, and dyed 
them in a kettle of hot water. One egg came 
out pink with blue polka dots for Precious. 
One egg came out with red and white stripes 
for Bunny. Jane’s egg was dyed lavender, 
her favorite color, and Junior’s egg was dark 
blue with white spots like his new neck-tie. 
Father and Mother Plummer had plain red 
eggs, very gay indeed. And Mother put the 
beautiful Easter eggs back in the basket in 
the woodshed and covered them up until 
Easter morning. 

While she was doing this, the Plummer chil¬ 
dren finished school and on the way home they 
stopped to look in the Toy Man’s window. The 
Toy Man had four wonderful sugar eggs there 
with a little glass window in one end of each. 
Through these tiny round windows a child 
might look inside and see a bit of fairyland. 
But just as Junior held up Precious, and Jane 
and Bunny squeezed their noses close up to the 
glass to try and see inside the sugar Easter 
eggs, the Toy Man himself reached in the win¬ 
dow and took away the eggs. 

“Someone has bought them,” Jane sighed, 


222 


FRIENDLY TALES 


“and I was just pretending that I was the 
fairy princess inside one.” 

“Sometime,” said Junior, “I will buy you 
a sugar egg.” 

But he did not really think he would ever 
be able to. The little Plummers never had 
things from the Toy Man’s shop. Their sur¬ 
prises were always new shoes, or mittens, or 
caps—always useful. 

But when Easter morning came and the 
Plummers sat down to breakfast around the 
fresh, checkered red tablecloth in the nice 
sunny corner of the kitchen, they somehow 
felt as if there were going to be a different 
surprise. Mother Plummer went out secretly 
to the woodshed, although they all saw her go. 
She came back looking more surprised than 
the little Plummers as she set a large box down 
on the breakfast table. 

“I found it where I left the basket of eggs,” 
she said. 

Junior Plummer was able to explain at once. 
“It’s an empty egg box,” he said. “You had 
this week’s eggs all packed up for Mrs. De 
Lancy so I took them to her. The cook said 
I was to bring back this box that you sent the 
eggs in last week. She said not to open it 


MIXED EASTER EGGS 


223 


until Easter. I was going to bring it in for 
dinner, for I think it is Easter cookies for us.” 
At once they knew there had been a mistake. 

“But it isn’t our egg box,” Jane Plummer 
said. 

“And it is too heavy for cookies,” Mother 
said. 

“Why not open it,” Bunny said, so they 
untied the string and lifted up the cover. Oh, 
how wonderful! 

Mother took out four crystal sugar eggs 
with little round glass windows in the ends, 
through which fairyland with green fields and 
trees and princesses and princes could be seen. 
The Plummers had never had such Easter 
eggs. Just to look inside one took them right 
away into another world. But of course they 
could not keep the eggs. Father Plummer 
found the Toy Man’s label on the bottom of 
the box. 

Mrs. Reginald Be Lancy, The Cedars, on 
the Hill. That was what the label read. 

“These eggs were for Junior and Jeanette 
and Maurice and Beatrice De Lancy,” Father 
said. “There has been a mistake in boxes. 
This one will have to go back.” 

Oh, dear—and these were the very same 


224 


FRIENDLY TALES 


wonderful sugar eggs from the Toy Man’s 
window! 

But just then there was a rap at the kitchen 
door and Mother opened it to find Junior De 
Lancy with the right box of cookies for them. 
His eyes were shining. 

“ Thank you for the beautiful dyed Easter 
eggs, Mrs. Plummer,” he said. “We never 
had any so nice before.” 

Now the Plummers, all save Mother, looked 
surprised but Junior Plummer said, “Here 
are your sugar eggs, Reginald. I am sorry I 
brought them home by mistake.” 

“Oh, please keep them,” Reginald said. 
“We don’t want old sugar eggs when we can 
have the better ones your mother sent us!” 
And then Mother Plummer, as well as she 
could because she was laughing so, explained 
about the eggs that she had dyed. 

So they all had a nice Easter, four little 
Plummers and four little De Lancys. The 
Plummers had a glimpse into fairyland with 
their sugar eggs, and the De Lancys a glimpse 
into Mother Plummer’s magical dye pot. 
Everything had turned out as it always does 
on Easter Day, new things for old, and sur¬ 
prises. 


THE LITTLE BLUE HEN 


N OT the Little Bed Hen, but the Blue 
Hen. 'You never heard of her? Of 
course you never did. She is the hen that this 
story is about. 

But the story is not about her in the first 
place. Oh, no, indeed. It is about the splen¬ 
did plan that Our Class in school had for keep¬ 
ing Easter in a new way. You see Peter, who 
had come so regularly to Our Class, had been 
ill for ever so long, and now he was only sit¬ 
ting up by the front window. He had to drink 
a quart of milk a day and eat four eggs, the 
doctor said, before he could even think of go¬ 
ing to school again. And Peter’s mother 
found it hard, with the high cost of things, to 
get all that milk and all those fresh eggs. 

“Why don’t we give Peter our Easter eggs, 
the ones we want to paint and keep? We 
could give him eggs, turn and turn about, be¬ 
fore Easter, and have him well after Easter,” 
Dorothy had suggested. And that was what 

225 


226 


FRIENDLY TALES 


Our Class was doing, taking turns going to 
Peter’s house with fresh eggs. They had been 
doing it for some time, and now it was Mar¬ 
got’s turn. 

And Margot didn’t know where or how she 
was going to be able to get even one fresh egg 
for Peter. She was out in the wash-house 
now, thinking about it. 

The wash-house looked lonesome, for Mar¬ 
got’s mother who usually filled it with singing 
while she soaped and rubbed and wrung out 
the fine washing for the neighbors, was in the 
house taking care of Granny’s rheumatism. 
Granny was getting better, but there had been 
no washing done for a week. That meant that 
the cracked blue china sugar bowl on the 
kitchen shelf was empty of dimes and quarters. 

“I won’t have a single Easter egg for my¬ 
self,” Margot thought, trying to squeeze back 
the tears, “and what shall I do about Peters 
The other children have mothers who keep 
hens, or can buy fresh eggs from the store. I 
didn’t like to tell them that I wasn’t expecting 
any colored eggs, not even one colored egg my¬ 
self. Oh, dear! ’ ’ and Margot sat down on an 
upside-down wash tub and stopped squeezing 


THE LITTLE BLUE HEN 


227 


back tears. Two came right out and rolled 
down her cheeks. 

And because Margot’s eyes were full, she 
didn’t see the little white hen, peeping in the 
door of the wash-house. 

No, that isn’t a mistake in the story. It 
wasn’t the Little Blue Hen. A little white 
hen, a stray hen, who had been wandering 
about among the neighboring chicken yards 
ever since she was a long legged little chicken, 
looked in the door of the wash-house and then 
turned away, talking to herself as hens do 
when they are happy. You may have heard a 
hen talk. They have a way of speaking half 
between a song and a purr and a croon. 

6 i The very place for me to lay my next egg, 
right here, where it will be appreciated!” sang 
this little white hen. 

Margot did not hear what the hen said. If 
she had there wouldn’t have been any surprise. 
She wiped away those tears, for two were 
enough. And she went into the house to help, 
for this was the day before Easter. 

As soon as Margot left the wash-house, the 
little white hen went in. She wasn’t particu¬ 
lar where she laid eggs, for she had no nest of 


I 


228 FRIENDLY TALES 

her own. Why, once she laid an egg in a 
kindling-wood box. Thinking of this, the 
empty clothes basket on the table was a palace 
for her. Up flew the little white hen to the 
top of the table. Splash, she went into some¬ 
thing she had never been in before! 

When it was Easter Eve, and it seemed as 
if the air of even the end of Our Town where 
washings are done smelled of lilies, and 
thrilled with bells, Margot went out to the 
wash-house for the clothes basket. Mother 
had asked her to take it for some next-week 
washing and to say, please, that last-week’s 
washing wasn’t done but would be the first of 
the week. 

“No colored Easter egg for me. No fresh 
Easter egg for Peter,” Margot was saying over 
and over to herself, but at the door of the wash¬ 
house she heard a real Easter song. 

Cluck-cluck! sang a real hen, who stood on 
the table looking proudly at the clothes basket. 

Margot rubbed her eyes. There, as cheer¬ 
ful as you please, stood the Little Blue Hen! 
She was bright blue almost all over, as if she 
had dyed herself for an Easter surprise for a 
good little girl. But that was not at all the 
fact. The little white hen had jumped right 


THE LITTLE BLUE HEN 


229 


into a pan of strong blueing that Mother had 
left there, and dyed herself for Easter that 
way. But she had not let a small matter like 
that interfere with the laying of her egg. No, 
indeed! The Little Blue Hen had flown out, 
dried herself a while, and then she had laid 
an egg, just as she had planned to, in the 
clothes basket. 

Peter said that it was the best egg he had 
ever eaten, and he was so much better that he 
needed but one for his Easter breakfast. The 
children of Our Class were so pleased when 
Margot told them about her colored hen that 
they offered to bring the Little Blue Hen 
corn. So the Little Blue Hen was able to 
keep Easter as well as the children. She 
clucked cheerily, for she knew that the rains 
would wash her white. She was trying, too, 
to say that there was always something for 
even a small tramp hen to do in Our Town. 


MRS. STUMP’S EASTER BONNET 


M RS. STUMP, ever since the winter gale 
that had made her a low, fat tree 
stump, had lived in the Brewster’s wood lot. 
She wore a long Mother Hubbard dress, 
ragged and brown and trimmed at the bottom 
with fringe. The dress was made of bark and 
the fringe of moss. Mrs. Stump stretched 
out one long, crooked arm with some fingers 
at the end toward the dense woods farther on 
where James and Molly Brewster played when 
the sun shone. In the dusk they never went 
in those woods. 

Mrs. Stump had a lichen nose where her 
head should have been and one eye, that had 
started as a knot on her trunk. “ Maybe some 
new clothes would make her look a little pleas¬ 
anter,” Molly said to James in the fall. But 
when spring came, although the other trees 
dressed ^themselves in green leaf hats and 
cloaks trimmed with vines and flowers, Mrs. 
Stump looked shabbier than ever. At least 

230 




MRS. STUMP’S EASTER BONNET 231 

she did not change until the day before Easter. 

It might never have happened if the new 
calf had not lost herself, and Grandfather 
away, and Grandmother not even well enough 
to help the children color eggs. “You will 
have to go and find that calf, James ,’ 1 Grand¬ 
mother said late in the afternoon. 

“I will go with you,” Molly said, “it might 
grow dark before you find her.” 

So James and Molly started through the 
wood lot on their way to the deep woods be¬ 
yond. and they stopped in surprise before 
Mrs. Stump. 

Mrs. Stump wore a very stylish Easter bon¬ 
net, cocked over her lichen nose and her knot 
eye. She had certainly not worn it yesterday, 
for Molly had been down that way to see if any 
of the hens had made nests in the wood lot. 
The bonnet itself seemed to be made of moss 
trimmed with violets, and it had long strings 
made of vines that hung down on either side. 
The bonnet made Mrs. Stump look so alive,, 
and her fingers seemed so much more crooked 
as she pointed to the woods that James and 
Molly ran. 

“Where do you suppose she got that bon¬ 
net?” Molly gasped. 


232 


FRIENDLY TALES 


“Never mind. Just hurry!” James said. 
He did not want to seem at all scared, but he 
was. They had both been always a little in 
awe of Mrs. Stump. 

The poor little calf was hard to find and it 
was close to dark as James and Molly started 
home with her, James holding her string, and 
Molly with her arm around her soft, brown 
neck. They had almost forgotten about Mrs. 
Stump, for the shadows beside the path were 
quite as strange and startling. But all at 
once they came to her, pointing right at them. 
The little calf gave a quick cry. No wonder. 
Mrs. Stump’s bonnet was moving! 

Yes, Mrs. Stump’s bonnet was going up and 
down, the strings flying, and the violets shak¬ 
ing. It was just as if Mrs. Stump had come 
alive and was talking to the children so se¬ 
riously that her bonnet quivered. Indeed, 
they could almost hear her voice as the evening 
wind rustled all around her. 

“Who-se, who-se?” asked Mrs. Stump 
pointing to the calf. 

Molly wanted to run, but not James. “My 
grandfather’s,” he said, holding the calf’s 
string tightly. “Don’t you run, Molly,” he 


MRS. STUMP’S EASTER BONNET 233 

whispered. “We’ll go along slowly as if we 
were very brave. ’ ’ 

“But look at her bonnet!” Molly whispered 
back. “Oh, but she is cross with us; see it 
shake! I suppose she thinks that she owns 
these woods.” 

“There it comes off!” James gasped. And 
just as he spoke Mrs. Stump’s Easter bonnet 
did come off. It fell to the ground at the 
bottom of her bark dress. And up from the 
top of the stump came the laughing face of a 
boy. 

“Why, Johnny-Beans, how did you ever get 
inside?” James asked, as the farmer’s little 
boy crawled out of the back of the stump. 

“And what did you do it for, Johnny- 
Beans ?” asked Molly. 

“This stump is hollow. I wanted to sur¬ 
prise you, for mother knows that your 
grandma is sick,” said Johnny-Beans, answer¬ 
ing both questions at once and holding out an 
Easter package. 

“But Mrs. Stump’s bonnet?” said Molly. 

“Oh, that,” said Johnny-Beans, “why, you 
know, I never thought about its looking like 
a bonnet. I just dug up some earth with 


234 


FRIENDLY TALES 


flowers and vines in it, and put it on top of 
my head as I hid so you wouldn’t see me.” 

“Good work, Johnny-Beans!” said James, 
“that’s an idea for a game. Mrs. Stump can 
play with us. We had made up our minds, 
anyway, not to be afraid of her.” 

“Easter cookies cut like rabbits, chickens, 
and clover leaves!” shouted Molly as she 
peeped in the basket. ‘ 4 Do thank your mother 
for us, Johnny-Beans!” 

“Who-se, who-se?” sighed the wind in 
Mrs. Stump’s throat. 

“Our cookies, of course, you nice old 
thing!” laughed Molly as she set Mrs. Stump’s 
bonnet on again. 

“Who’s afraid?” laughed James, catching 
hold of Mrs. Stump’s long arm and shaking it 
as they all started home through the soft twi¬ 
light of Easter eve. 


IN THE FLAG HOUSE 


B ETTY had not meant to lose herself. 

She had gone with Father on one of his 
business trips to Philadelphia and while he 
was busy with a meeting, Betty had stood at 
the wide entrance of the hotel watching the 
cars and looking at the great red, white and 
blue flags flying from the tall buildings. 

“Why are there so many flags out today?” 
she asked the man in uniform who stood at the 
hotel entrance to meet the taxi-cabs and auto¬ 
mobiles as they drove up. 

“Why, this is Flag Day,’ ’ he told her. 6 ‘The 
anniversary of the day when we adopted the 
Stars and Stripes.” 

“Of course,” Betty said, looking up at the 
warm yellow sun shining down on the city 
street. It was June, and Flag Day although, 
in the fun of the trip, she had forgotten. “I 
wish I had a flag,” she went on. 

“There’s a toy shop just a little way from 
here on Arch Street, ’ ’ the man told her. “You 
can see it from here.’’ 


235 


236 


FRIENDLY TALES 


Betty opened her little beaded purse. Yes, 
there was a bright new dime in it, enough for 
buying a small flag. She looked hard at the 
hotel entrance so as to be quite sure of finding 
her way back to it. Then she started down 
Arch Street. 

She was so amused at the odd little houses 
which she soon came to that she passed the 
toy shop where there were flags for sale. They 
were low red brick houses with funny wooden 
shutters hung from the top. The windows 
had small panes of glass, but washed so clean 
that they shone. The front doors were white 
with round windows at the top and bright 
brass door-knobs. In front of each house was 
a low white marble step. 

4 ‘ They look like the toy houses in my Mother 
Goose book,” Betty said to herself. Then she 
looked for the toy shop, but it was nowhere to 
be seen. She gasped, stood still, and two fat 
tears just would come to her eyes. She could 
not see even the top of the hotel building from 
which she had just come. Betty was lost! 

But before the tears had a chance to fall, a 
strange procession came down narrow Arch 
Street and stopped in front of one of the little 


IN THE FLAG HOUSE 


237 


red brick houses. Leading it was a tall man 
dressed in a blue and gold uniform, with a 
powdered wig covering his hair and wearing 
silver buckles on his queer, low shoes. Sol¬ 
diers in old-time uniform followed him, and as 
Betty trailed along with the rest of the people 
who were watching, they turned in at the door 
of the house. 

Betty peered in through the door, and saw a 
very interesting room. A tall clock stood in 
one corner and a spinning wheel in another. 
The table, the floor, the high-backed chairs 
were all covered with red, white and blue cloth. 
A very pretty young lady in a gray dress, white 
cap and white apron sat in the middle of the 
room sewing together the red and white stripes 
to make Old Glory. The man in the white 
wig stood in front of her with a folded white 
paper in his hand which he opened and showed 
her. 

“A pattern for our stars, Mistress Betsy,’’ 
he told her. 

The lady in gray looked at the pattern and 
shook her head. She folded a square of paper, 
snipped it with her scissors, opened it wide 
and held it up. “Here is the pattern of a 


238 


FRIENDLY TALES 


five-pointed star, General Washington,’’ she 
said, “which methinks is better than the one 
of six points which you made.” 

The man smiled and turned to his soldiers. 
“What say you, we give Mistress Betsy an 
order for all of our new flags ? ” he asked them, 
and there was a great hand-clapping among 
the people crowded into the little room. 

Betty rubbed her eyes. Could she be dream¬ 
ing? General Washington, a lady in a 
Quaker dress making flags by hand! But just 
then a little boy who stood near her on the side¬ 
walk spoke to her. 4 4 This is the real house on 
Arch Street here in Philadelphia,” he told her, 
4 4 where Betsy Ross made the first flag, and 
where George Washington visited her with his 
staff and she told him how to cut out a five- 
pointed star. This is a Flag Day pageant, and 
these people are dressed up just as the sol¬ 
diers and Mistress Betsy Ross were so long 
ago when we first made the flag.” 

That was wonderful! Betty thought that 
no little girl she knew had ever had such a 
wonderful time on Flag Day as this, to walk 
right into the narrow street, go straight to the 
funny little house where the Stars and Stripes 


IN THE FLAG HOUSE 


239 


began. But just as she thought this, those 
two tears that had been hiding came out and 
rolled down her cheeks. 

“What’s the matter?’’ asked the boy. 
“What are you crying about?” 

“I’m lost!’’ Betty told him. 66 I started out 
from the hotel to buy myself a flag and I don’t 
know the way back.” 

“What is the name of the hotel?” the boy 
asked. 

Betty could tell him that. She had one of 
the nice small sheets of paper from her room 
with the name of the hotel engraved in blue 
letters folded up in her beaded purse. She 
showed it to the friendly boy. He laughed as 
he beckoned to her to follow him. They hur¬ 
ried down Arch Street only a little way, turned 
a corner, and there they were! 

“Philadelphia is a funny old city,” the boy 
told Betty. “The streets are so close together 
that they get all mixed up. You can get lost 
right in front of your own house, if you don’t 
know the way, and there you will be, just as 
you were—in front of a place that is known all 
over the world.” 

Betty thanked the boy, and as he left her at 


240 


FRIENDLY TALES 


the hotel entrance he put a small flag into her 
hand. 

“Keep it,” he said, “I bought two. Keep 
it to remember Betsy Ross, and General Wash¬ 
ington, and getting lost in Philadelphia by!” 


THE EOUETH OP JULY SURPRISE 


I T looked like anything but a happy Fourth 
of July for Teddy and Theo. They stood 
in the garden talking it over and looking very 
glum. 

“No fire crackers, because they are not 
safe,” said Teddy. 

“And no torpedoes or cap pistols, because 
they make too much noise,” said his sister, 
Theo. 

“No ice cream, because the ice man forgot 
to call at our house this morning,” said Teddy. 

“And we can’t telephone for him, because it 
is a holiday, and he is not going to make an¬ 
other trip until tomorrow,” said Theo. 

“Mother has a headache and so we mustn’t 
ask her to take us anywhere, ’ ’ said Teddy. 

“Oh, dear, I don’t think we are going to 
have a bit good time on this Fourth of July,” 
said Theo. 

Bang, pop, BANG! What was that? It 
sounded like a cannon fire-cracker, a toy pistol, 

241 


242 


FRIENDLY TALES 


or a toy cannon. Indeed the loud noise that 
came to the children might have been from all 
three of these in one. 

“That is the first noise we have heard this 
Fourth,” Teddy said. “Fireworks are not 
allowed. Who do you suppose is sending off 
something?” 

But before Theo could answer, there came 
more noise, BANG. BANG. Pop. 

The two went to the gate and looked up and 
down the street, but they couldn’t see any 
smoke. But just then there was a loud ding- 
ling of a bell, and the ambulance went flying 
up the street. 

“It is going right straight towards Billy 
Brewster’s house,” Theo said. “Do you sup¬ 
pose that Billy was sending off fireworks when 
he shouldn’t, and is very badly hurt?” 

“I saw his mother down at the station this 
morning,” Teddy told Theo, “and she took the 
ten o’clock train into the city.” 

i 6 Then Billy is all alone, and maybe the am¬ 
bulance will take him to the hospital, and 
maybe he is too much hurt to tell them that 
his mother has gone to the city,” Theo said. 
It all seemed very real, and most confusing. 


THE FOURTH OF JULY SURPRISE 243 

“We had better go right up there to Billy’s 
house and see to things,” Teddy said. 

So Theo got her hat and Teddy got his hat 
and a pencil and paper to write down anything 
that the ambulance man might want to know 
about Billy, all of which took a little time. 
Then they went up to the Brewsters’ house, 
but when they got there, they found nobody 
at home except the Brewsters’ big yellow cat, 
who was having a very good time chasing 
grasshoppers on the front lawn. 

“They have taken Billy to the hospital. 
We will have to go on to the hospital,” Teddy 
said, so he and Theo ran in the warm sun 
until they came to the big hospital gate and 
there, just inside, stood the ambulance man. 

“Where is Billy Brewster?” Teddy asked. 
Everybody knew Billy at the hospital, because 
his grandfather had given most of the money 
for it. 

“Was he badly hurt?” Theo, almost crying, 
asked. 

The ambulance man looked surprised. “I 
was just exercising the horses,” he said, “and 
I saw Billy over at his grandfather’s place. 
He was sitting on the piazza eating ice cream. ’ ’ 


244 


FRIENDLY TALES 


“Then what made the noise?” Teddy asked 
Theo as they started home, warm, and tired. 
But all that Theo could say was “Ice cream!” 
she kept on saying it, and Teddy thought she 
would never stop, but just then they came upon 
the picnic party. 

It was surprising that they had not seen 
it before, an automobile standing in the road 
near the Brewsters’ house. It had an ice 
cream freezer sitting all alone on the front 
seat, for the people, a large family made up 
of a mother, father, and four children, stood 
in a circle around it. The boy ran to meet 
Teddy. “We thought nobody would ever 
come,” he said. “Do you know where the 
nearest garage is? We have two punctured 
tires.” 

“We were going to have a picnic down by 
the river,” said the next child, a little girl 
about Theo’s age. “We made chicken sand¬ 
wiches and chocolate cake, and we froze the 
ice cream early this morning. We have come 
a long way and now the cream will melt.” 

Teddy knew what to do. “We have a car,” 
he said, “and I guess my father will be glad to 
pull your father’s car to the garage. It’s 


THE FOURTH OF JULY SURPRISE 245 

about a mile from here. You come along 
home with us.” 

“But the ice cream?” said the little girl. 

“We will take that to our house,” said Theo, 
“and put it down in the cellar.” 

“Then we had better bring the sandwiches 
and the cake too,” said the boy. 

So the whole family and Teddy and Theo 
and the ice cream freezer and the sandwiches 
and the cake went home to the garden, and 
what a surprise they found there! Mother, 
quite well of her headache, was watching for 
them, and father had set up a large new play 
tent for Fourth of July instead of fireworks. 

“All we needed was ice cream,” Mother said 
as she saw Ted in the lead, tugging the freezer. 

“But it isn’t ours,” Theo said sorrowfully. 
“We are only carrying it.” 

“Oh, no,” said the mother of the other chil¬ 
dren, “it is yours, and ours too. This is 
such a beautiful garden. Couldn’t the chil¬ 
dren all have a picnic here while the fathers 
take the car to the garage?” 

That was a very good idea. There was a 
tent, there were enough boys and girls and 
plenty of food. Mother made extra sand- 


246 


FRIENDLY TALES 


wiches, too, and added little round cup cakes 
with flags stuck in the icing to the feast. It 
turned out to be the best Fourth of July Teddy 
and Theo had ever had. 


IN TOY TOWN 













THE PRIZE BALL 

T HE strangest thing about the Toy Man 
was that he was no bigger than they. 
The children came upon his shop one day in 
the spring when all sorts of new things, dande¬ 
lions, baby lambs, and cherry blossoms, were 
out. There it was, a little striped tent at the 
end of the lane with the Toy Man shaking his 
stick of bells outside. Short, and cheery, and 
dressed like the king’s clown, he stood to wel¬ 
come them. And there were such jolly new 
toys inside his shop; bright little tins for mak¬ 
ing sand pies, shining tools and painted wheel¬ 
barrows for gardening, cloth dolls in clothes 
that would wash, and tubs for doing a doll’s 
washing. 

“Come in!” the Toy Man called to the chil¬ 
dren. “Come in and look about. All that I 
lack is balls. In my search from the north 
to the south, and from the east to the west I 
have not been able to find the ball I want; one 
that has all the colors in the world in it, and 

249 


250 


FRIENDLY TALES 


will fly, and that any boy or girl can have 
cheaply. That is the ball for my shop. If 
one of yon can find me a ball like that I will 
have you for my partner who gives out the 
toys.” 

That was a chance, to stop there with the 
Toy Man in the little striped tent at the end 
of the lane and give out the toys to whoever 
needed them, for they were not sold! The 
Toy Man was giving away his toys to the chil¬ 
dren who had none. So everyone was very 
busy trying to find a prize ball. 

“Here it is. Here is just the ball you 
want!” shouted Clive, the jeweler’s boy, one 
morning, running up to the Toy Man with 
something held tightly in his closed hand. 
There in his palm lay a round ball of a pearl. 
It held all the colors of the world caught and 
shining out from its surface. It was a very 
costly pearl, but Clive’s father had said he 
might offer it to the Toy Man who could make 
children so happy. 

The Toy Man looked at the pearl, and then 
he shook his head. 

“No,” he said, “that is not the ball for 
me. How could it fly up in the air as a ball 
should?” So Clive took the pearl back to 


THE PRIZE BALL 


251 


its velvet cushion in the jeweler’s case. 

“Here it is. Here is the ball you want!” 
Joan said one day as she ran down the lane 
with a wonderful ball flying over her head from 
a silken cord. It was made of gossamer silk, 
shimmering with all the colors her father, the 
weaver, knew how to put into his fabrics. It 
was blown up like a balloon and could soar 
up above the tree tops when she unwound the 
cord. 

But the Toy Man touched it and then shook 
his head as he gave the silk ball back to Joan. 
“A ball that any child can enjoy,” he said, 
“is the one I want. It is very, very hard to 
find.” 

So the children, and their fathers and 
mothers too, tried their best to make balls for 
the Toy Man who was so hard to suit. Almost 
ever day a new one was brought for him to 
see, balls cut from polished marble that would 
roll if one only touched them, scarlet rubber 
balls that would bound higher than a child’s 
head, carved cups and balls made of precious 
stones, even a gold ball was offered the Toy 
Man. But not one of them suited him, and 
it seemed as if not one child would be chosen 
to be his partner and give out the toys. 


252 


FRIENDLY TALES 


And at last the strange little Toy Man be¬ 
gan closing the door of his tent every day for 
a while and going about among the village 
streets looking for what he wanted. The chil¬ 
dren could be sure that he had been watching 
them, for they would hear the echo of his bells 
up the street, or a flash of blue in their midst 
like his pointed cap, or the game that had been 
quarrelsome before would be happy all at 
once. And at last they forgot about his need, 
but not the Toy Man. He did not forget. 

One Saturday when the dandelions were 
flying away, and the lambs’ legs were longer, 
and the cherries were ripe, the children saw 
a beautiful thing. Up above the striped tent 
of toys at the end of the lane a colored ball 
was floating in the air. It was bright with 
all the colors of a rainbow, big, shining, and 
flying softly toward them. 

They ran toward it with their hands out¬ 
stretched to catch it, for no one had ever seen 
such a pretty ball or one that seemed so nice 
to have before. But all at once the ball of 
colors was gone. Then, as quickly, another 
just like it, only larger and more brightly 
colored took its placed There it floated, and 


THE PRIZE BALL 


253 


others came and soared around up there in the 
blue air. 

What was the secret ? The children ran to 
the Toy Man to find out. 

At the door of the tent of toys, they found 
Peter whose mother did fine washing for the 
village.. Peter, who sang as he carried home 
the baskets piled high with snowy linens, but 
who seldom had time to play. Peter sat 
there, blowing soap bubbles and tossing them 
up in the air in time to the tinkling of the 
Toy Man’s bells. All the colors of the world 
were in his bubbles, caught in them from the 
sunshine, and they flew up in the air, one after 
another as fast as he could toss them. Eeally, 
there could be no more beautiful balls than 
Peter’s bubbles. 

The Toy Man chuckled as he rang his bells 
more loudly, and pointed to Peter. “I found 
him making these balls at home,’’ he said. 
“Oh, he did not see me, for I hid behind one 
of his mother’s baskets of linen. As he waited 
for her to fill it, he made me one of these bubble 
balls, just what I had been looking for—a ball 
of colors you would search the world over for, 
and then find right at home.” 



FRIENDLY TALES 


254 

So Peter was the Toy Man’s partner and 
gave out the toys all that season, until the day 
when the Toy Man folded his little striped 
tent and went on to the next village. He was 
going to teach other children to make those 
bubbles of happiness, he said. And that was 
all right, for Peter stopped at home, and every 
boy and girl had learned to blow colored bub¬ 
bles. 


THE GINGERBREAD CAT’S 
ADVENTURE 


T HE last-year Toys knew that what had 
happened to them was perfectly right. 
They had to be put up in the storeroom so 
that the playroom might be ready, all clear, 
for the beautiful new toys that would come 
at Christmas. That was what always hap¬ 
pened to last-year Toys and they never made 
a fuss about it, even if the storeroom was way 
at the back of the house, cold and lonely. 

But there was one thing that troubled the 
old Toys very much. Every one of them had 
been planned and made and hung on the 
Christmas tree or put in a Christmas stock¬ 
ing to do something for somebody. It wasn’t 
their fault that they were no longer useful. 
And as soon as they felt themselves put away 
in the storeroom, the Toys began to look 
around for something to do in spite of their 
breaks, their limps, and their other troubles. 
The Trumpet started it, calling them with a 

255 


256 


FRIENDLY TALES 


faint note to be up and doing. Then the 
very opportunity for which they had been 
wishing came to the old Rag Doll. She had 
been placed on the sill of the storeroom win¬ 
dow, quite close to the broken pane, and the 
wind came up, howling, for it was now win¬ 
ter. 

“I am co-o-oming i-in!” howled the wind. 

“Not while I can keep you out!” the old Rag 
Doll tried to say, hugging close to the broken 
pane and keeping out the wind. 

The wind howled about it. “Who-o-o are 
you?” he scolded, going up to the chimney to 
complain, but in the end the wind had to go 
away. He couldn’t possibly get in with the 
Rag Doll bravely keeping him out of the 
broken window pane. 

Then it snowed and snowed, and rained and 
rained. The storeroom was at the back of 
the house, upstairs, where the roof leaked and 
the melted snow and rain came in through a 
break in the shingles. But just where the 
leak was stood the old dolls’ Wash Tub which 
had lost its paint, but could still hold water 
very well. The Wash Tub caught the rain 
from the leak in the roof and held it safely 
until someone came in the storeroom to empty 



THE GINGERBREAD CAT’S ADVENTURE 257 

it out. The toy Tea Kettle helped the dolls’ 
Wash Tub in doing this, and so did the broken 
Tea Set. This was a useful thing to do, and 
all the other Toys tried to find something as 
useful to keep them busy. 

The Wagon with only three wheels held 
the broken Soldiers. The old Fire Engine 
stood by the chimney ready to do its part if 
there should be a fire. All were soon busy 
and happy except the Gingerbread Cat, and 
there seemed to be really nothing for him to 
do. 

This was because the Gingerbread Cat had 
always been so careful of himself, never allow¬ 
ing himself to be eaten, or played with, or even 
cracked. He was made in the beginning of 
very hard dough and he had stood in a place of 
honor on the playroom mantelpiece for a 
long time growing even harder. His white 
icing stripes and spots were as hard as stone. 
Even his green citron eyes were too well stuck 
in his head to fall out. 

“I shall stand here, on the mantelpiece, for 
Christmas,” the Gingerbread Cat had thought, 
and how surprised he had been when he was 
swept into the basket with the rest of the last- 
year Toys and taken to the storeroom. The 



258 


FRIENDLY TALES 


mantelpiece in the playroom was going to 
hold a new little Cuckoo Clock. 

But the Gingerbread Cat went right on be¬ 
ing careful of himself in the storeroom. He 
had his own, nice dusty little corner. He was 
careful to stay away from the cold window, 
and the warm chimney, and the leak in the 
shingles. He tried to feel happy and impor¬ 
tant. But, somehow, the Gingerbread Cat 
could only feel lonely and hard. At least 
that is how he felt until one night when he had 
company. 

He could see the little person very well 
in the dark with his green citron eyes. 
The Gingerbread Cat’s company came out of 
a tiny round door in the wall and looked long¬ 
ingly at him. 

“Would you come home with me and help 
the family a little*?” the small person asked. 

“No, I will not!” said the Gingerbread Cat 
in his hard, doughlike voice. 

But the small person came again the next 
night, pleading with his little hands folded 
over his waistcoat. “We are such a nice 
family,” he said, “six children, their mother 
and me. Won’t you come and see us?” He 
waited patiently for an answer. 


THE GINGERBREAD CAT’S ADVENTURE 259 

The Gingerbread Cat thought. “Don’t you 
think I am too hard?” he asked in a softer 
voice, for the storeroom was making him 
slightly damp. 

“Not a bit,” said the little person in a small 
squeaky voice. 

“Let me think it over,” the Gingerbread 
Cat said in a rattling voice as some of his icing 
fell off because of his excitement. 

Not long after that the Children came into 
the storeroom to get the old Toys. That hap¬ 
pens ever so often, for old Toys are like old 
friends, the best of all. And the Children 
shouted to see how well the Toys had spent 
their time in the storeroom, all by themselves, 
all busy and useful. 

“But where is the hard old Gingerbread 
Cat?” the Children asked. “Did he break 
up? Here is the trail of his crumbs.” 

So they followed the trail of crumbs to the 
little round door in the wall, and there they 
found out about the Gingerbread Cat. He 
had been more unselfish than any of the others. 
He had given up being too careful of himself. 
He would be put in the Wall-and-Rafters 
Daily News, even his picture, because of his 
adventure. 


260 


FRIENDLY TALES 


He was probably the only cat in all history 
who had allowed himself to be eaten by a 
family of hard working, hungry little gray 
mice! 


THE KITE THAT PLAYED A JOKE 


4tr 11 HERE,’ 7 Edgar said, as he tied the last 
1 twisted piece of colored tissue paper to 
the tails of the kite, “I don’t believe this kite 
will stop at the clouds even, it is so light. I 
wouldn’t be surprised if it went right on 
farther. You do know a great deal about 
making kites, don’t you, Grandfather'?” 

“Well,” his grandfather said, as he put the 
cover on the glue pot and set it back on the 
shelf in the woodshed, “the two points to keep 
in mind in making a kite are that it must be 
light, and very strong.” He felt of the thin 
wooden ribs that held the framework in place 
as he spoke. “You see newspaper is just as 
good as anything else for the kite itself, tough 
and serviceable, if only it has a strong back¬ 
bone. Good luck to your flying,” he finished, 
“I’ve got to drive to market with the eggs.” 

Edgar helped to load the crate of eggs into 
the wagon, and then he took his kite up to the 

top of the hill back of his grandfather’s place. 

261 


262 


FRIENDLY TALES 


It was a bright, sunny day of early spring, 
and there was a brisk wind blowing. He 
gripped the ball of cord that made the string 
of the kite very firmly, and then played it out 
a little to test the power of the kite. It 
caught the wind at once, tugging at the string 
so hard that Edgar had hard work to hold it. 
He gave it more leeway. It began to rise so 
fast that Edgar had trouble unrolling the cord 
fast enough. Grandfather certainly knew 
how to make a kite, the little boy thought. 

Now the kite was growing smaller as it rose. 
Edgar could no longer make out the printing 
on the newspaper, and its tail looked like a 
bit of rainbow up there against the blue sky. 
It sailed higher and higher until it seemed only 
a speck, and then it tacked, moving along on 
a level until it was fairly out of Edgar’s 
sight. The tugging on the string cut his fin¬ 
gers. 

“I must get it back,” he thought as he tried 
to pull it in. Suddenly the string snapped 
and only a short length of it remained in his 
hands. The kite had flown away all by it¬ 
self. 

“Oh, dear!” Edgar said to himself, having a 
hard time to keep back the tears, “I almost 


THE KITE THAT PLAYED A JOKE 263 

knew that it would go farther than the sky but 
I didn’t want it to. I think it would be better 
not to tell Grandfather that I have lost it, 
for he spent so much time making it. I hope 
he won’t speak of it at supper.” 

Grandfather didn’t. Mother had made bak¬ 
ing-powder biscuit to eat with honey, a 
favorite supper of Grandfather’s, and he ate 
six. After supper he went to sleep reading 
the Weekly Grange, and the next day he never 
spoke of the kite. The first thing that he 
said was, “How about driving in to town with 
me, Edgar? I have to get a new fork at the 
hardware store and you might pick out a base¬ 
ball for yourself at the same time.” 

That was a treat! Driving along at a brisk 
trot behind the brown mare, Edgar forgot 
about his trouble of the day before. There 
were other teams on the road to wave to and 
when they came to the Town Green they saw 
a large crowd gathered around the white meet¬ 
inghouse. 

“What’s the matter?” grandfather asked a 
man. 

“The meetinghouse clock has stopped,” the 
man replied. “It stopped yesterday after¬ 
noon about four o’clock. It is the first time 


264 


FRIENDLY TALES 


that the meetinghouse clock has stopped in 
twenty years.’’ 

“I know what a fine, steady old clock it 
is,” grandfather said. “They don’t make 
any like it nowadays.” 

“And the strange thing about it,” the man 
went on to say, “is that the works are all 
right. The sexton saw to that last week. 
And it is wound up to go for several days 
longer.” 

“What is going to be done about it?” 
grandfather asked. “All the clocks and 
watches for miles around are set by the meet¬ 
inghouse clock, and the town meeting and the 
church services are timed by it.” 

“They are sending a steeple climber up to 
see what is the matter,’ 2 the man said. 
“There he goes now!” 

Edgar stood up on the seat of the buggy to 
see the strange sight. By means of ropes to 
hold to and spikes in his shoes, the steeple 
climber made his perilous way, higher and 
higher up the side of the church, until he came 
to the steeple. Then he scaled the steeple 
and hung there, looking like a little dwarf as 
he examined the face of the old clock. At last 
he signaled to his helpers down below to be 


THE KITE THAT PLAYED A JOKE 


265 


ready with the ropes, for he was coining down. 
Everybody crowded around, for it was the 
most exciting thing that had happened in a 
long time. 

At last the steeple climber was down. 

“Can you hear what he is saying V 9 grand¬ 
father asked the man, “I am a little deaf. 
What does he say was the matter with the 
meetinghouse clock?” 

“He says that it was a kind of joke, what 
happened to it,” the man replied. “I can’t 
catch the rest.” 

Edgar peered over the heads of the crowd 
and he saw the steeple climber take something 
from under his coat. It was his kite! 

“It was caught in the hands of the clock,” 
the people said to each other laughing. “It 
was making a visit to the meetinghouse 
clock.” And the face that grandfather had 
drawn in charcoal on Edgar’s kite seemed to 
be laughing too, although there was little else 
left of it but a grin. 


THE SURPRISE IN THE 
FREIGHT CAR 


“ T" T’S coming! See the smoke and hear the 
± rails sing!” Clifford, the station agent’s 
little boy, said to his friend, Jimmy. “ There 
she is at the curve. Get out of the way, 
Jimmy, the freight from Mill River is com¬ 
ing and she will be on our siding in a minute 
now!” 

It was true, although the loaded cars had 
been a long time on their way. They were 
full of white, smooth, sweet smelling boards 
from the pine country sawed and planed at 
Mill River. But the freight cars had stood 
a month near the mills there, because the river 
had risen and washed away the railroad 
bridge. 

Roaring, spitting cinders and grinding 
along the rails the long trail of freight cars 
came toward the two boys. Then it slowed, 
was switched to an empty place in the freight 
yard and Clifford and Jimmy went over to 

look at the piles of boards. 

266 


THE SURPRISE IN THE FREIGHT CAR 267 

“Here is our car, the one marked in chalk, 
Longmeadow!’’ Clifford shouted. “And here 
come the men to unload it. Hold on, Mr. 
Barnes,” the hoy said to the man in overalls 
who had come to see to the unloading. “Don’t 
take out all the boards. Father has bought 
enough of that lumber to fix up my yard for 
Jimmy and me to play in this summer. We 
are going to have a see-saw, a sliding board, a 
new swing frame and a little house for keep¬ 
ing our tools and to tinker in. Here is the bill 
of lading for our lumber.” Clifford handed 
the important looking paper to the man. 

“All right,” Mr. Barnes said, “then I’ll 
only unload what boards the town carpenter’s 
bill calls for and in the morning you boys can 
come over and take out yours. It’ll be safe 
for you here in this part of the yards and the 
boards are light.” 

“Good work!” shouted Jimmy. 

“I’ll be here right after breakfast!” said 
Clifford. 

But it happened to be Jimmy who was down 
at the siding where the almost empty freight 
of boards stood the next morning. Jimmy 
lived in the small cottage just below the sta¬ 
tion and Clifford had found him in the win- 


268 


FRIENDLY TALES 


ter gathering coals along the track for his 
mother. A fine boy, Jimmy, as Clifford had 
found out, doing all he could to help his 
mother. And he was a good playfellow as 
well. He knew all the different signals for 
switching and the numbers of the engines, for 
his father had run an engine once. So Jimmy, 
who had no playthings, was going to share 
Clifford’s yard and all the jolly good times in 
it. No wonder that he peeped into the car 
of boards at daybreak! 

But he only peeped in. Then he pinched 
his leg to see if he were awake. Yes, he was. 
Then Jimmy ran as fast as he could away 
from the freight car. He ran right into Clif¬ 
ford who had eaten his breakfast early and 
hurried down to the tracks. Jimmy’s eyes 
were wide open. 

“The Little People came into our freight 
car last night, Clifford,” Jimmy gasped. “I 
heard them rustling around just now and 
then I saw their red coats!” 

Clifford looked at Jimmy in surprise. 
“Don’t be a baby, Jim,” he told him. “I 
guess you were reading that fairy book of your 
grandmother’s again last night. You come 


* 

THE SURPRISE IN THE FREIGHT CAR 269 

on over to our car with me and we will see if 
the Little People are there or not.” 

So Clifford went bravely over to the siding, 
climbed up into the big, sawdust strewn car, 
stayed a second and then jumped out. He 
ran as fast as he could, bumping into Jimmy 
who had followed a little way behind. 

“What did you see'?” Jimmy asked. 

“Their red coats!” said Clifford, “and they 
seem to have a little house all thatched with 
straw just like the pictures in your book, 
Jimmy. I saw the straw and the brown clay 
walls. ’ ’ 

Close together, the boys sat down on the 
station step and thought. This was very 
strange, enough so to have taken away their 
courage. At last Jimmy spoke, 

“Perhaps they lived up there in the woods 
near the mills and came down with the lum¬ 
ber.” 

“It says in your grandmother’s book,” said 
Clifford, “that the Little People are very fond 
of cakes. We might creep up to the door of 
the car, leave a cake there and then see if we 
could catch one of them. I don’t believe in 
the Little People, but this is very strange.” 


270 


FRIENDLY TALES 


“I’ll get a cooky,” Jimmy said, running 
down the track toward his house. 

When he came back, the two boys stole over 
to the car, laid the cooky just inside the door 
and then waited at a safe distance. They did 
not have to wait long. Holding their breath, 
they saw one of the Little People come out 
from behind the new boards, peck at the cooky 
and then chirp cheerfully to his mate. What 
he really would have liked would have been 
a worm but a cooky was welcome after a trip 
of so many miles in a freight car. How the 
boys laughed! 

“Red vests, not coats!” chuckled Jimmy. 

“A nest of mud and straw, not a little 
thatched cottage!” said Clifford. “Those 
robins must have built their nest and raised 
the little ones in the car while it was held 
up by the flood at Mill River.” 

“Well,” Jimmy said, “the workshop and 
the see-saw and the sliding board and the 
swing have got to wait until those young 
robins can fly!” 

“Yes,” Clifford agreed, “well guard their 
train until then!” 




THE VOYAGE OF THE BOTTLE 

DOLL 

A S she started on her voyage down the 
brook the bottle doll was very glad that 
her head was made of oil cloth. That would 
keep her from being drowned. 

She was made of a nice, fat milk bottle and 
her name was Tillie Cloverdale. Tillie for the 
little girl who had made her that summer, and 
Cloverdale for the dairy farm where they both 
lived. Tillie made her own dolls and this one 
had been so satisfactory, because she could live 
in the willow tree playhouse at the edge of 
the brook, even when it rained. 

Cotton batting tied like a ball around her 
glass neck and then covered with white oil 
cloth on which her blue eyes and smiling red 
lips were painted made Tillie Cloverdale’s 
head. She was not at all fussy about her 
clothes, being a country doll. At the time she 
started out on her voyage she was wearing a 
red and white gingham dress, very full, and 

271 


272 


FRIENDLY TALES 


tied around her neck with a tight string. It 
was gingham that would not fade or shrink. 
She wore also an oil cloth apron with a border 
of clover blossoms painted in pink around the 
bottom. 

But how did Tillie Cloverdale happen to go, 
and where was she going ? 

That first question is very easy to answer, 
because she did not plan to go off all by her¬ 
self down the brook. Oh, no, indeed! Now 
that the long summer of play was over and 
the trees on the edge of the brook were drop¬ 
ping their leaves, one by one, into the water, 
Tillie Cloverdale knew that her playtime was 
over. No one cared about keeping a bottle 
doll in the house all winter. She was not 
stylish enough, even for a farmhouse, but 
Tillie had decided to live there all alone, and 
all by herself, among the leafless willows on 
the bank of the brook until spring. Then 
would come her good days again when out¬ 
door dolls were wanted. That was Tillie’s 
plan, but it did not work out that way. 

The autumn leaves fell down into the water 
and sailed away, no one knew where. The 
autumn raindrops fell in the brook, and they 
too went down-stream with the current. The 


THE VOYAGE OF THE BOTTLE DOLL 273 

bank grew soft and Tillie Cloverdale felt her¬ 
self slipping. You see she had no legs, only 
a pair of arms made of rolls of oil cloth and 
tied about her neck. Her feet would have 
helped her to keep her place, but she had none. 
Slip, slide, went this bottle doll until, all at 
once, she felt herself in the water with the 
leaves and the current. Then it was that 
Tillie Cloverdale was glad of her oil cloth face. 
She kept her head well out of the water by 
means of it. 

With her dress and apron spreading out all 
around her, the bottle doll began to float. On 
and on she floated with the brook, down¬ 
stream. And now comes the answer to the 
second question. Tillie Cloverdale did not 
know where she was going. She was just go¬ 
ing! 

A brook is very busy in the fall, as if it were 
trying to do all the things it had been too 
lazy to do in the summer and get them done 
before frost. Tillie Cloverdale’s brook did 
not pay much attention to her, but went right 
on washing its pretty pebbles, singing to the 
birds that it was time to go south, gathering 
fleets of leaves and chips all the way, and 
hurrying as fast as it could to the river. The 



274 


FRIENDLY TALES 


river, the brook knew, did not freeze over quite 
as soon as did the smaller streams. 

And along with the brook went Tillie 
Cloverdale, farther and farther away from 
home, nearer and nearer to her fate. She 
tried to speak in her gurgling, glassy voice to 
the wild geese flying overhead, and then to the 
reeds in the water about it. But the wild 
geese only honked at her in a sort of laughing 
way. She did look very amusing as she 
floated along, her little white head and her red 
gingham skirt just showing on the surface of 
the water. As for the river reeds—yes, Tillie 
Cloverdale had come to the beginning of the 
river—they only made way very politely for 
her and sighed to see a little bottle doll taking 
such a wild voyage all by herself. 

On and on floated Tillie and now the days 
were cold and the nights were full of dangers. 
The river reeds gave way to pieces of fat drift¬ 
wood that bumped Tillie in a most impolite 
way and kept her bobbing under water all the 
time. There were great, bright eyes that 
peered at her, the lights of the river boats. 
And the days grew colder and colder until 
Tillie was afraid that she would crack. 
Bottles do crack, you know, in the cold. 


THE VOYAGE OF THE BOTTLE DOLL 


275 


Then, one morning, Tillie found out that some¬ 
thing quite as dreadful had happened to her. 
She could not move. Only one arm and her 
round blue eyes and red lips were above the 
water. Tillie was frozen in! 

She felt like the most miserable doll in the 
world. Who would not have ? She was miles 
away from home. She could scarcely see for 
the frozen tears in her eyes. She was stuck 
in the ice of a river for the winter. She had 
no mother. Oh, but listen! 

Tillie Cloverdale heard a shout. She felt 
something sharp, like a fish hook caught in 
her arm, but she did not cry out. Up, up she 
felt herself moving until she lay on the deck 
of a big river barge, stuck also for the winter 
in the first ice of the season. A laughing man 
in yellow oilskins was looking at her. 

“Daughter! Little daughter, come and 
look at the queer fish I have just caught!” he 
called. “She was in the thin ice, and I spied 
her and brought her up safe and sound for 
you.” 

Then Tillie Cloverdale felt herself hugged 
in the arms of the captain’s little girl, hugged 
tightly. 

“What a dear, funny bottle doll!” Tillie 


276 


FRIENDLY TALES 


Clover dale’s new mother was saying. “The 
only doll I have. She shall live in the cabin 
with me all winter!” 

So wasn’t that worth the voyage? Tillie 
Cloverdale with her cabin, her new clothes, 
and her loving mother, thought so! 


THE TEDDY-BEAR MYSTERY 


A S long as it’s not your doll, Janet, I 
don’t mind watching it for you, ’ ’ Billy 
said as Janet, his next-door neighbor, put the 
handle of her doll-carriage into his hand at the 
door of the grocery. “It’s only your Teddy- 
bear, isn’t it?” and he looked anxiously under 
the covers at a pair of brown ears sticking out 
from under a pink silk cap, and two brown 
paws lying on a blue baby blanket. 

“Only!’’ Janet said, giving the covers a pat 
and the bear a kiss, “it is my very dearest 
bear baby, Billy, and I wouldn’t have any¬ 
thing happen to it for the world. You will 
watch the carriage while I go in and get 
mother a loaf of bread, won’t you, Billy, and 
not let anybody touch it?” 

“Why, yes, I guess I will, Janet,” Billy 
said, taking up his stand beside the Teddy- 
bear, “only don’t be long. It looks funny, 
you know, for a boy to be minding a doll-car¬ 
riage,” but nobody heard Billy, for his friend, 

277 


278 


FRIENDLY TALES 


the Teddy-bear’s mother, had gone into the 
grocery. 

“I ought to keep it going, I suppose,” Billy 
thought, rolling the carriage a little way along 
the side walk and then back again. “The 
Teddy has to be kept asleep.” He was just 
taking a peep under the pink silk bonnet when 
he heard a shout around the corner. 

“The boys!” he gasped. “What am I go¬ 
ing to do? I can’t let them see me here with 
a doll-carriage!” And Billy ran as fast as he 
could around to the back of the grocery store 
where the empty boxes were kept and there 
were good places to hide. He could hear the 
boys in the store. Ted Blake had ten cents 
to spend and it took them a long time to buy 
marbles, lollipops and a new top string with 
it. 

Even after he could no longer hear the 
boys’ voices, Billy did not dare to come out. 
They might be waiting around. It was ten 
minutes before Billy came out to the front 
of the store again. “Maybe Janet has gone 
home,” he thought. But, no, there was the 
doll-carriage waiting, and the Teddy-bear 
with patient paws folded on the blue blanket. 
Billy took up his post again. 


THE TEDDY-BEAR MYSTERY 279 

“I’ll keep my word to Janet,” lie said to 
himself, looking all around for fear there 
might be a boy in sight, “but I wish Janet 
would hurry. ’ ’ The clock on the engine house 
tower said that she had been in the store half- 
an-hour. “Maybe she can’t get waited on. 
I’ll go in and see,” but when Billy went in the 
grocery, Janet was gone. The clerk said that 
she had gone home a long time before. 

“And forgot her baby,” Billy said, “just 
like a girl. Now I have got to wheel that doll- 
carriage way down to her house!” 

He started, keeping as close to the buildings 
as he could, and going fast. The fire bell 
rang, and as Billy wheeled the Teddy-bear 
across the street, he almost ran into the hook- 
and-ladder truck. “Look at the boy with the 
doll-carriage!” he heard the crowd following 
the truck say. 

Things grew worse, though, farther on. He 
met the boys, trying the new top string in a 
quiet place on the sidewalk. At first they 
couldn’t believe their eyes. Then they fol¬ 
lowed Billy, asking him if his doll was asleep 
and how many more he had at home. It was 
hard, but Billy came to Janet’s house at last, 
running, and the boys were left behind. He 


280 


FRIENDLY TALES 


was just about to turn in the gate when Janet 
came down the walk to meet him. 

There, on her front piazza, was her doll- 
carriage! She held her Teddy-bear close in 
her arms and she looked reproachfully at 
Billy. “You might have lost him,” she said, 
“or he might have been badly hurt. You 
said you would watch him, Billy!” 

“I did—” Billy began, and then he looked 
down at his doll-carriage. It was gray 
wicker, just the same size as Janet’s and the 
blanket was blue. But under the blanket, in 
a red cap, lay a cloth monkey! Billy had not 
once looked in the carriage as he raced for 
home. 

“Whose—where—!” that was all Billy 
could say. 

“Well, I am sure I don’t know, Billy,” 
Janet said, “you will have to find out. I can 
tell you that monkey isn’t my child,” she 
ended as she went into the house. 

There was nothing for Billy to do but go 
on, and he had no idea in which direction to 
go. He was wheeling a girl’s doll-carriage 
and he did not know whose. In it was a cloth 
monkey, and it was not his monkey. And 


THE TEDDY-BEAR MYSTERY 281 

Janet hadn’t believed him. If he had not 
been a boy, Billy would have cried. He 
wanted to dump the monkey into the gutter, 
but he felt as if it ought to be taken back to 
the grocery store, so he wheeled it along back. 
All the way he met people he knew. 

He kept his head down and that was why he 
did not see, but only heard, the little girl on 
Maple Street. 

“Oh, here he comes!” she shouted, almost 
bumping into Billy, “Mother, here is a nice 
boy bringing Jocko home, and I thought I 
would never see my baby again. I left the 
doll-carriage outside of the grocery store when 
I went for the extra candles for the cake. It 
is my birthday, Boy, and we are having a 
party. Won’t you come in and have a big 
dish of ice-cream and a piece of my birthday 
cake?” 

“I believe I will,” Billy said, in a tired 
kind of voice as he gave up his doll-carriage, 
“I’ve been wheeling this monkey until I’m all 
worn out.” 

“My friend, Janet, is coming,” the new girl 
told Billy. “She is going to bring her big 
Teddy-bear.” 


282 


FRIENDLY TALES 


“I’ve been minding that bear too,” Billy 
said in a tired tone of voice, and then he told 
the new little girl all about it, and she told 
Janet, and how they did laugh over it! 


THE PAPER DOLLS’ ADVENTURE 


T HEYi did not exactly run. No, indeed, 
but they ran away for all that. How 
did they do that, being paper dolls ? Oh, that 
is the story. 

They were the large family of the Fashion 
Plates. There were ever so many of them, 
big paper dolls, little paper dolls, lady and 
gentlemen dolls, and boy and girl and baby 
paper dolls. They could not have told you 
their names, but Nancy, who had cut them 
out, up in Aunt Mary’s attic on rainy days, 
knew the names of all the Fashion Plates, even 
to the smallest child who was only a back view 
to show the cut of the back of his coat. 

Aunt Mary was a dressmaker and Nancy 
was spending one month of the summer vaca¬ 
tion with her. That is how the large family 
of paper dolls began. Aunt Mary had piles 
and piles of fashion books with colored pic¬ 
tures in her attic. It was such fun to cut out 
the figures, stiffen their backs so that they 

283 


284 


FRIENDLY TALES 


would stand without doubling up, and then 
take them down to play with in the front yard. 

“Why don’t you ask some other little girl 
to come in and play paper dolls with you?” 
Aunt Mary asked, but Nancy shook her brown 
curls very hard. “These are very nice, col¬ 
ored paper dolls, Aunt Mary,” she said, “and 
besides that they are the Fashion Plates from 
Paris. I don’t want to share them.” And 
when the other neighborhood children looked 
in through the front gate, Nancy just turned 
her head the other way. 

The Fashion Plates’ home was an old book. 
They had a number of rooms between the 
pages where they could lie safely and per¬ 
fectly flat. There were so many of them that 
they made the book bulge out and the covers 
loosen, but Nancy had not noticed this. She 
was so busy cutting out a new lady in a party 
dress, or a baby in his first short clothes to 
add to the family that at last there were more 
paper dolls than the book could very well 
hold. 

The Fashion Plates found this out one 
breezy day when they had been left on the gar¬ 
den seat in the front yard while Nancy and 


THE PAPER DOLLS’ ADVENTURE 285 

Aunt Mary went down to the store to match 
sewing silk. They had dishes of ice-cream 
afterward, and that gave the paper dolls 
plenty of time to do just what they wanted to, 
not being a settled family, but ready to trail 
off at any invitation. 

“Puff, puff,” came the breeze opening the 
pages of the book house. “It is a bright, 
blowy summer day,” sang the breeze, “come 
with me and show your clothes to the village.” 
So the Fashion-Plate gentlemen with their 
tennis rackets, the ladies in pink afternoon 
dresses, the children in rompers and even the 
smallest child who was only a back and so had 
to blow away backwards without knowing 
where he was going, all went. They went 
with the breeze, flying up the street, catching 
their pretty dresses on hedges, getting their 
faces dirty and tearing themselves. Oh, how 
the Fashion-Plate family tore their clothes! 

But that was not the worst of it. Some of 
the Fashion-Plate children got in the way of 
the street sprinkler. That was the end of 
them. They were not used to being washed 
and they just crumpled up and went to pieces. 
If Nancy had seen what was happening, she 


286 


FRIENDLY TALES 


would have been very unhappy indeed but all 
this happened while she was finishing her 
strawberry ice-cream. 

“ There will be time to play with the paper 
dolls for a whole hour before supper,” she 
said as she and Aunt Mary came home. Then 
she stopped in surprise at the gate, for a 
strange little girl sat on the piazza. She was 
opening the pages of the book house and 
putting in a few draggled Fashion-Plate 
people very carefully. 

“What are you doing with my paper 
dolls—” Nancy began crossly as she hurried 
in, but the strange little girl laughed so mer¬ 
rily that she stopped. 

“I caught a few,” she said, “and I knew 
where they lived, for I live just down the 
street a little way and I have been watching 
you play.” As she spoke the little girl opened 
a box that she had brought with her. Oh, but 
it was a delightful box! It held bright plaid 
and striped paper, and paper with tiny flowers 
on it, strips of pink and blue and green paper 
that were just like bits of bright ribbon, and 
white paper lace. “My father has a paper 
box factory,” she told Nancy, “where they 
cover candy boxes and writing paper boxes 


THE PAPER DOLLS’ ADVENTURE 


287 


and hat boxes with this pretty paper. And 
he gives me the pieces for dressing my paper 
doll. She has joints. If you like, I will show 
you how to make a doll like it, for I have a 
pattern.’ ’ 

“Isn’t she pretty, with a colored head, and 
legs and arms fastened on so they will move!” 
Nancy exclaimed. 

66 Mother painted her head. She will paint 
one for you, too,” said the kind little visitor. 

“I think you are so friendly,” Nancy said, 
putting her arms around her company. “I 
was just keeping all that Fashion-Plate fam¬ 
ily and not sharing one with any other child.” 

“I know just how you felt,” the other little 
girl said, “they looked too nice to share.” 

And at that very moment the most stylish 
of the Fashion Plates sat in a broken, wilted 
manner on top of a lamp post. She wore a 
ball gown, but no one saw her up there. 


SAYING BROTHER 


B ROTHER BEECHER lay, dressed in 
his best lace cap and cloak, in a go-cart 
by the window. Billy Williams, over in his 
window next door, could see Brother plainly. 

“He’s going out for a ‘A&e. Ellen is going 
too,” he thought as he had a glimpse of Ellen 
tucking Brother’s covers in a little more 
tightly, and wearing her hat. “I hope Ellen 
will ask me over to see Brother soon. He 
looks like a nice baby, if he is so young.” 

“I am going down town, Billy,” mother said 
just then. “I have left a plate of cookies for 
you in the pantry. ” 

Billy thought that he would sample one of 
those cookies at once. It was so good that he 
ate several and then he played a game of 
dominoes by himself. It was about an hour 
before he went to the window again. There, 
just as he had been before, lay Brother 
Beecher in the house next door. He had not 
moved, nor was he moving. He was there all 
alone. 


288 


SAVING BROTHER 


289 


Billy rubbed bis eyes to see if be were seeing 
straight. Yes, be was. Tbe Beechers’ bouse 
looked very quiet and their car was not in tbe 
garage. They bad gone away and left a little, 
almost-new baby alone. Billy could hardly 
believe that it was true. And Brother looked 
too still and white to be natural. 

“ Brother has learned to put his toes in his 
mouth,” Ellen had told Billy at school yester¬ 
day, “and you just ought to see him kick!” 

But*Brother was not kicking now, and why 
was he all dressed up for a trip? Either he 
was ill and the family had gone to the hos¬ 
pital to make plans to take him there later, or 
something had happened to the Beechers 
themselves. “I’ll have to try and do some¬ 
thing about that baby,” Billy said to himself. 
“Bear me,” he went on, “there is smoke com¬ 
ing out of the Beechers’ chimney. Maybe the 
house is on fire!” Billy slammed on his cap 
and ran across the grounds, but the Beechers’ 
front door, side door, back door, and the win¬ 
dows were locked. 

“I’ve got to get in to Brother Beecher some¬ 
how,” Billy told his friend, Dudley, who 
stopped to watch him trying the windows. 
“The house is on fire and that baby is all alone 


290 


FRIENDLY TALES 


in it, sick.” It all seemed real to Billy, just 
how things stood with Brother. 

“Get the fire-chief then, quick!” Dudley 
advised as the two boys sped down to the en¬ 
gine house. 

“The Beechers’ house is on fire, and be sure 
you rescue the baby. He is in the bow win¬ 
dow, lying sick in his go-cart,” Billy told the 
fire-chief. 

They hardly waited to see the firemen jump 
into their places on the engine and the truck, 
but raced up the street to Doctor Powder-and- 
Pills’ office. That wasn’t his real name, but 
all the children called him that. “We will get 
a doctor there as soon as the fire department,” 
Billy said. “And rush Brother to the hos¬ 
pital in an ambulance,” Dudley added. 

“Brother Beecher’s lying in his bow-win¬ 
dow very ill, and the house is on fire,” Billy 
told the doctor. 

“And something dreadful has happened to 
the Beecher family,” Dudley said. “They’re 
all gone.” 

“Wiped out!” Billy finished, as he had read 
it in a newspaper. 

“You don’t say so!” said Doctor Powder- 
and-Pills, grasping his medicine bag and rush- 


SAVING BROTHER 


291 


ing out to his car. “You boys jump in and 
ride along with me,” he said. 

“We can fill glasses with water and get 
spoons,” Dudley said. “And call the ambu¬ 
lance, ’ ’ said Billy. 

The car speeded around corners and down 
the avenue on which Billy and Ellen lived. 
The space in front of the Beechers’ house was 
rather crowded, for the fire engine was there, 
and another car. When Doctor Powder-and- 
Pills could get close enough to see, Billy 
gripped his arm. “There he is!” he cried. 
“The firemen rescued him. There he is in his 
go-cart on the front piazza!” 

“And that is the Beechers’ car with all the 
family in it—that car in front of the house!” 
Dudley said. 

It was, and they could hear the fire-chief 
talking to Father Beecher. “Not much of a 
fire,” he said, “only the kitchen stove smok¬ 
ing, but it might have set the chimney on fire. 
Some boys gave me the alarm. And we res¬ 
cued the baby. ’ ’ The chief grinned from ear 
to ear as he lifted a great big doll, wearing 
Brother Beecher’s best lace cap and cloak, 
from the go-cart. 

“Don’t you mind, boys,” Doctor Powder- 



292 


FRIENDLY TALES 


and-Pills said, as Ellen ran to her doll and 
Billy and Dudley tried to hide. “You’re all 
right—know what to do in case of danger. I 
won’t tell my part in this rescue.” Chuck¬ 
ling, he drove off. 

“Billy and Dudley!” Ellen shouted, “come 
and see Brother. He went with us for his 
first automobile ride this afternoon!” Sure 
enough, there was Brother Beecher in the back 
of the car, kicking away and wearing his first 
hat. 

“Those are the boys!” said the fire-chief, 
pointing to Billy and Dudley. “Who rescue 
dolls,” he started to say. “Who take care of 
their neighbor’s property,” he ended. 

“Come in, boys; we brought home ice-cream 
and cake,” Mother Beecher said. “As soon 
as I put Brother down we will have some.” 

“What do you think of my new doll?” Ellen 
asked Billy. 4 4 It fits all Brother’s things. ’ ’ 

“I’m only thinking about ice-cream,” Billy 
said. ‘ ‘ Everything else is too mixed-up. ’ ’ 


THE WILD TRAILER 


iC A SWING, a big sand-pile, a little tool- 
house, and lots of toys!” Baxter ex¬ 
claimed, peeping in through the gate of the 
place at the end of the road where a new boy 
had just moved in. 

6 ‘Stingy!” sniffed John, Baxter’s friend, 
with whom he was playing on Saturday after¬ 
noon. ‘ ‘ That new boy is in our class at school, 
and you know how mean he is. He didn’t 
speak to us all this week, and every afternoon 
he has been out here on the walk with a whole 
box full of new tops, spinning them. Do you 
think that he asked me to try one'? No, sir! 
He is a stingy, mean boy!” John finished. 

4 ‘Well,” Baxter said, “then there isn’t any 
use of our staying around here. Let’s play 
train, John. I will go on ahead with my loco¬ 
motive, and we will tie on your automobile to 
follow it. If we both pedal at the same time, 
we can go fast.” 

It was a splendid plan. Baxter’s locomo- 

293 


294 


FRIENDLY TALES 


tive was made like a toy automobile so that he 
could sit in it, behind the cab, and make it run 
with his feet. John’s automobile was just the 
same size, and the two, fastened together, 
made a fine train. They started up the road 
when they saw Jimmy out in his back yard 
tinkering on his cart. 

Jimmy was their good friend, in the same 
class at school, but he had fewer playthings 
than they. This cart of Jimmy’s was made of 
an old wooden box, some strips of board, and 
the wheels from the old baby carriage in 
which Jimmy used to ride. But it was strong 
and Jimmy was just oiling the wheels, so that 
he could coast fast down grade in it. Baxter 
had an idea. 

“Let’s tie Jimmy’s cart to your automobile 
for a trailer, ’ ’ he said. “ If we both pedal fast 
we can pull Jimmy just as easy as anything, 
and it will give him a good time.” 

“Fine!” said John, “and we can have a 
longer train that way.” 

Jimmy was very happy at the thought of 
being a trailer with the toy locomotive going 
on so fast ahead. He wheeled his cart out of 
the yard and the three boys tied it to John’s 
automobile with quite long pieces of rope. 


THE WILD TRAILER 


295 


“Make it long,” Jimmy told them, “so I can 
have room enough to turn around a corner. 
I don’t want to bump into John.” 

“You won’t,” John told him, “this is a long 
rope.” With that, they lost no time about 
starting. 

Bing, ding, ding, went the locomotive bell. 
Toot, toot, came the horn from John’s car, and 
with four feet pedaling as fast as they could, 
off went the train up the road. And Jimmy 
went too. The other boys hardly knew that 
they were drawing the trailer, for Jimmy was 
quite a long way behind and his wheels were 
so well oiled. 

On, and on; faster, and faster, went the 
train, the whole length of Pine Road, way up 
the long grade to the top. Bing, ding, stop!” 
came the signal from Baxter, so John put on 
his brakes and stopped just in time to avoid 
a collision. “We came up in fine shape, didn’t 
wef ’ Baxter said, getting out of the locomo¬ 
tive. “We gave Jimmy a good ride; hope he 
put on his brake.” But all at once both boys 
were silent. 

Jimmy wasn’t there. The trailer was no¬ 
where in sight. There was only a piece of 
rope tied to John’s automobile to tell them 


296 


FRIENDLY TALES 


that the trailer had come untied, that it was 
lost and they did not know where. 

Baxter spoke first. “Poor Jimmy!” he 
said, “maybe he backed into a team. That 
cart goes so fast that he couldn’t have stopped 
it once it got to running wild.” 

“It’s all my fault,” John said, “I didn’t tie 
the rope tightly enough. ” 

“Well, we must go and find him,” Baxter 
said, “and the first thing to do is to go to his 
house and see if he is there. If Jimmy had an 
accident, somebody would take him home.” 

So two very sober little boys started for 
Jimmy’s house, going around on the other side 
of Pine Boad, for that was the shorter way. 
But no Jimmy was there. His mother was 
out sweeping the front porch, and Baxter said 
that they ought not to worry her. The thing 
to do was to find Jimmy first, and then tell her 
of the accident to the trailer afterward. 

They started on again in the locomotive and 
the automobile as fast as they could. “It was 
a long way for the trailer to go wild,” John 
said, ‘ 4 and it must have gone faster every min¬ 
ute, all the way down Pine Road.” 

They were thinking so hard that they 
scarcely knew Jimmy when he called to them 


THE WILD TRAILER 


297 


in a cheery voice from the gate of the new 
boy’s grounds. “Come on in!” Jimmy 
shouted, “we’re having a fine time.” 

Baxter and John stopped and went in with 
Jimmy, too surprised to do anything but won¬ 
der. “A swing, a big sand-box, and a little 
tool-house!” Jimmy said, pointing to them, 
“all for us to play in. Tom, oh, Tom, here 
they are!” he called as the new boy looked out 
at them from behind the tool-house. “He is 
bashful,” Jimmy explained, “but he wants us 
to play with him and use all his things. You 
see I backed down the road—couldn’t stop the 
trailer—and I backed right into this boy’s 
yard. He opened the gate when he saw me 
coming, and the tool-house stopped me. Tom 
says that was a good way to get a boy to play 
with—to have him run in wild. He was too 
bashful to ask any boy to come in. You see 
I came in without asking.” 

Tom was laughing now, and Baxter and 
John were trying to. They felt very much 
ashamed, but they never told Tom what they 
had thought about him in the first place. 



THE USEFUL CANNON 


A LL that Harold could see from his win¬ 
dow was a deep, dark court with ever 
so many fire escapes going up and down it. 
When the sun shone, it sent only a few bright 
arrows down into the court, and even these did 
not stay very long. Harold loved the city 
when he could go to the big, bright school on 
the corner of the street and play in the public 
playground afterward, with its sand piles, 
swings, and sliding boards. But now he had 
a cold and could not go out. 

He did not know any other children in the 
house yet. Ever so many lived there on the 
different floors, but he did not see them often, 
and then they were hurrying through the 
halls. Harold was lonely as he looked out of 
the window. The doctor had said that he 
must have the window open, so there he was, 
bundled up in a blanket, and feeling forlorn. 
The house was too huge for neighboring. 

“I wonder who lives in the apartment just 

298 


THE USEFUL CANNON 


299 


across the court, the one with a window like 
this, and right across from me!” the little boy 
thought. Then, just as the thought came to 
him, the window of the opposite apartment 
was raised a little, and Harold saw the mouth 
of a cannon, a small, wooden cannon, pointed 
toward him! 

‘‘Mother, come, I am going to be shot!” 
Harold called but his mother did not hear, be¬ 
cause the trains in the street made so much 
noise. Before Harold could run away, the 
cannon went off. Bang, it went, and a can¬ 
non ball shot across the court and landed in¬ 
side Harold’s window. It was white, and it 
lay on the floor in front of him. 

He picked it up cautiously and looked at it. 
It was made of white paper, and inside it was 
a pink gum drop! Harold looked over at the 
opposite window. There was the merry, 
laughing face of a boy his own age. He waved 
his hand to Harold, and then he loaded the 
cannon a second time. 

Bang! went the wooden cannon again, and 
this time the ammunition was a little Amer¬ 
ican flag all wrapped up in paper. Harold put 
it on his window sill and he and the other boy 
gave three cheers for it. The court yard did 



300 


FRIENDLY TALES 


not seem deep and dark any more with two 
boys there opposite each other. 

The next day Harold rigged np a parachute, 
a round piece of silk for the top, some strings, 
and a little box filled with pop-corn at the bot¬ 
tom. He tossed it out of the window. Would 
it go over ? The air circling up the court took 
it and sailed it across to the other boy. 

The days were short and bright now. Har¬ 
old did not mind his cold at all. That cannon 
certainly could shoot; a little rubber ball, a 
glass marble, a chocolate drop and some nuts! 
All these came to him. 

The day that he first went to school again, 
Harold had a wonderful surprise. There at 
the door of the apartment house was the boy 
who owned the cannon. He was a new boy in 
the house so Harold took him to school, and 
afterward they played together with the 
swings, the sand and the slides. 


IN A CHILD’S TOWN 



t 










IN THE VILLAGE OP LIGHTS 


O NCE upon a time there was a little vil¬ 
lage a long way from here where none 
of the children had shadows. No one would 
have known what to think if they had looked 
behind them in the road and seen a queer little 
shadow child in a gray cloak trailing along. 
No, indeed, this was a village of lights. No¬ 
body looked back, everybody looked ahead as 
they hurried up and down the pretty lanes and 
the main street where the cake shops and the 
top shops and the flower shops were. And to 
help them see the way and to tell others that 
they were coming, every single person, big or 
small, in this village had a light. 

These lights were in colored lanterns tiny 
enough to carry close to one’s heart, and the 
flashes of color went ahead of the children and 
made the place as bright as if there were rain¬ 
bows at all the corners. Like a locomotive 
with its headlight, or a nice toy automobile 
with its tail light, or the sun sending its beams 

303 


304 


FRIENDLY TALES 


down from the sky, you could tell who a child 
was by the way he shone. 

These lanterns were not given to the chil¬ 
dren of this village by their fairy godmothers. 
No, indeed, they were not. But every child 
had a chance to earn a light if he chose, and 
some fine morning there it would be waiting 
for him at the door of his house all shining 
and of his own particular color. 

One little girl, named Bonny, had a yellow 
light in her lantern. She was the oldest in the 
family and got up so early every morning to 
dress the dear baby and cook the porridge that 
she had caught a large sunbeam in her lan¬ 
tern, and she shone a long way when she went 
out for a walk. The boy whose father kept 
sheep and who tended the small lambs all day 
long, had a beautiful green lantern to light 
him home at night. It was the color of the 
pasture grass where he watched the flock. 
So it was with all the children, but at the time 
when this story starts, something strange hap¬ 
pened in the village of lights. 

Three strange children wandered there 
from the woods at the north. The village 
children did not know what to think of them, 
for there seemed to be six instead of three. 


IN THE VILLAGE OF LIGHTS 


305 


Close to each of these children walked a 
shadow child such as no village child had ever 
seen. Not one of these strange children had 
a light. 

The name of one child was Shiver-and- 
Shake. He hadn’t a hit of courage. You 
could make him jump by just saying, BOO, 
loudly behind him. The village children soon 
found this out. The second child was named 
Mud-Pies. It is all very well to make mud 
pies on Saturday, and beside a clear brook. 
But this child was untidy. She covered her¬ 
self with mud, and she left her mud pies in 
front yards on nice, clean gravel paths. 

The third strange child was named Tongue- 
Twister. He told lies, just as if his tongue 
were crooked and would not let his lips speak 
honest words. 

Everybody was glad to welcome new chil¬ 
dren to the village but Shiver-and-Shake, 
their little sister, Mud-Pies, and that unre¬ 
liable Tongue-Twister did not fit in well. 
They were continually falling down and 
bumping into other children in the street and 
they could never go to parties or picnics in this 
nice village, for they had no lanterns with 
which to find the way. 


306 


FRIENDLY TALES 


So this kept up for some time, and these 
three children were neither useful or happy. 
Every day new lanterns were seen in the 
street, pink, violet, and orange in their flames. 
If only these children with shadows might find 
lights! 

And after a while the children themselves, 
this Shiver-and-Shake, their untidy little sis¬ 
ter, Mud-Pies, and the Tongue-Twister, began 
to feel that something would have to be done 
about it if they were ever to have a good time 
in the village. They were not only in the way 
of the others, being six instead of three stran¬ 
gers if you counted their shadows, but they 
were not of very much joy to themselves. 

“Let’s do something different!” said 
Shiver-and-Shake. 

“Let’s!” said Tongue-Twister, “no matter 
how it hurts.” 

So that is how it happened that the three 
shadow children started out to get rid of their 
shadows. 

“Oh, dear!” sighed the shepherd boy one 
day. “I heard wolves howling on the hill 
yesterday. If I could only have some help 
with my flock! How can I drive the lambs 
and guard them at the same time ?” 


IN THE VILLAGE OF LIGHTS 307 

“I’ll help you!” said little Shiver-and- 
Shake bravely. “ Just try me.” 

So the two lads watched the flock together, 
and Shiver-and-Shake chased off the wolves. 
It was much better sport than shaking all the 
time and quite as easy, he found. 

“Oh, why, little Mud-Pies, are you always 
so untidy?” said Bonny one day as she held 
her sunshine lantern high and saw the little 
stranger girl busy with her mud by the side of 
the road. 4 4 There is a nice spring in our gar¬ 
den and a bright tin basin for washing our 
faces hangs on a low tree beside it.” 

Mud-Pies looked at Bonny with her bright 
lantern, and then she looked at her own dirt. 
Then she followed Bonny home and decided to 
try the spring and the basin. It was wonder¬ 
ful how she came out, white, and yellow- 
curled, and sweet. Now she looked as clean 
as a little village maid should. 

“Where have you been, Tongue-Twister?” 
she asked her brother as she met him in a lane 
just then, his face covered with jam. 

Tongue-Twister might have told a lie, but 
he couldn’t when he saw his clean, pretty little 
sister. “I took some jam from the sweets- 
shop window, ’ ’ he said. 


308 


FRIENDLY TALES 


“Then we must go back and tell the shop¬ 
keeper and say we are sorry,” said his sister, 
which was what they did. 

So these three children found it good sport 
to be brave, and clean, and honestly true. 
They kept it up every day, until the day when 
the village was full of excitement because the 
General of that country was going to ride by 
with all his soldiers. The lanterns were pol¬ 
ished until the roadside down which he would 
gallop looked like a jewel shop. It was ru¬ 
mored that the general might choose certain 
colors to be his own staff colors. That would 
be an honor! 

A flare of trumpets, a crash of drums, a 
great beating of horses’ hoofs, and there was 
the General in his gold lace and wearing many 
badges and stripes. He rode slowly through 
the lane of lights, looking at each little lan¬ 
tern. All at once he stopped and the children 
looked where he was looking, at three lights 
shining close together. Three bright, search¬ 
ing lights shining from three new little lan¬ 
terns, and the colors were red, white and blue. 
They were the lanterns of Shiver-and-Shake, 
Mud-Pies, and Tongue-Twister, new lanterns 
which they had truly earned having lost their 


IN THE VILLAGE OF LIGHTS 


309 


shadows. Red for bravery, white for purity, 
and blue for the truth! 

And these were the colors chosen by the 
General to be the lights of that country, al¬ 
ways together, always brave, clean, true col¬ 
ors. 


THE BAG OB MARBLES 


O NCE upon a time there was a Boy who 
wanted, oh, very much he wanted, a 
bag of smooth, gay-colored new marbles. So 
he went to the shop where they were sold with 
ten cents and said, “Ten cents’ worth of 
marbles, if you please,” holding out his 
money. 

But the Shopkeeper shook his head very 
decidedly. “You can’t have marbles this sea¬ 
son for so little,” he said. “Marbles have 
gone up. Twenty-five cents, if you please!” 

The Boy had only ten cents and he was very 
much disappointed and also very much sur¬ 
prised. “Why,” he asked the Shopkeeper, 
“are the ten cent bags of marbles twenty-five 
cents this season?” 

In a second the Shopkeeper was able to tell 
him. “The trains that bring the stone from 
the quarries for making marbles are not run¬ 
ning,” he told the Boy. “So I have very few 
bags of marbles left and I must charge more 
for them.” 


310 


the bag op marbles 


311 


The Boy could not understand this but he 
wanted, oh, very much he wanted, a bag of 
smooth, gay-colored marbles. So what did he 
do but go to the Engineer of the train that 
brought the stone from the quarries and he 
asked him, “Why is your engine not run¬ 
ning ?” 

In a second the Engineer was able to tell 
him. “There is no coal being mined,’’ he 
said, “and how can I run the engine that pulls 
a freight train without any coal?” 

But the Boy wanted, oh, very much he 
wanted, a bag of smooth, gay-colored marbles. 
So he went farther, until he found the Coal 
Miner, and he asked him, “Why are you not 
at work mining coal so that the freight train 
may run and bring stone from the quarry, so 
that I may have a bag of marbles?” 

In a second the Coal Miner could tell him. 
“The Grocer asks me to pay so much for his 
eggs and flour,” the Coal Miner told the Boy, 
“that I have decided to give up mining coal 
and take up some trade that will help me to 
earn more.” 

And the Boy saw his bag of smooth, gay-col¬ 
ored marbles farther and farther away, but 
he made up his mind that he was not going to 


312 


FRIENDLY TALES 


give them up yet, so he went on farther until 
he came to a Farmer. 

“Why,” the Boy asked the Farmer, “do 
your eggs and flour cost so much that the Coal 
Miner can’t buy them and so has decided to 
give up mining, and there is no coal for the 
engine of the freight train that brings stone 
from the quarry? I want some new marbles 
this season made from that stone.’ ’ 

At once the Farmer could tell the Boy. “It 
is hard to get men and boys to help me,” he 
said. “When food is scarce the whole world, 
even the toyshop, is upset.” 

So the Boy found out that work was what 
was lacking and making his new marbles cost 
so much. 

He was a fine, strong Boy and he took off 
his coat and he went right to work feeding the 
Farmer’s hens and gathering eggs and help¬ 
ing to pack them in crates for the market. He 
gathered up grain after the harvesting, too, 
and with more work on the farm there was 
soon more food on the Grocer’s shelves, all the 
food that the Coal Miner needed and cheap 
enough with its plenty. 

The Coal Miner was glad indeed to keep on 
with his old trade, since he could get eggs and 


THE BAG OF MARBLES 


313 


wheat flour from the Grocer. All day the ring 
of his pick could he heard and coal began to 
move to the freight yards. Then the En¬ 
gineer started his engine and the freight train 
moved up to the quarry and back again, its 
cars full of beautiful white stone for build¬ 
ing and for making marbles. It brought the 
materials for necessary work and for all kinds 
of happiness, as trains do. 

“Dear me,” said the Shopkeeper one day, 
“I have more marbles than boys to buy them! 
I must mark them down to ten cents a bag 
again.” 

And that was the nice thing which hap¬ 
pened. The Boy was able to buy with his ten 
cents a bag of smooth, gay colored marbles and 
he also had wages from the Farmer to boot. 
And he knew a fact or two into the bargain, 
mainly that the way to get the thing one 
wants is to work for it and that work will 
do wonders, turn engine wheels, make marbles, 
anything! 


THE HOUSE THAT WENT DOWN¬ 
HILL 

I T was the little white house with green 
blinds that stood next Billy’s little white 
house with blue blinds in Our Village. It was 
a summer house and so was Billy’s a summer 
house, and he played with Phyllis who lived 
in the little white house with green blinds. 
They were summer friends in Our Village, 
fishing, tramping and having picnics together. 
Phyllis was able to throw a ball as straight 
as Billy. She was not afraid of thunder or 
small green lizards or any country things of 
which girls are usually afraid. The two 
shared everything, except one. Phyllis would 
not go to Sunday School in the white church 
that stood in the beautiful valley of Our Vil¬ 
lage. At the foot of a hill it stood, and the 
valley was green enough and pretty enough 
to have been one of David’s valleys, white with 
sheep. 

“It is a very small Sunday School, Phyllis,” 

314 



THE HOUSE THAT WENT DOWNHILL 315 

Billy told her. “Why won’t you cornel” 
b “I don’t know the Village children,” Phyl¬ 
lis told Billy. She gave him the idea that she 
was shy, but the truth of it was that Phyllis 
was just a little bit lazy. The Sunday School 
in Our Village was held at nine o’clock, before 
church, so as to give the fathers and mothers 
time to drive their long distances home in time 
for dinner. Phyllis did not like to get up so 
early on Sunday morning and she had a feel¬ 
ing that if she went to Sunday School all win¬ 
ter in Town, she could have a vacation from 
it in the summer. 

So the summer came to an end in Our Vil¬ 
lage and Phyllis had not been to Sunday 
School. The little white house with the green 
blinds was empty and quiet, and Billy and 
Phyllis said goodbye at the station, for their 
trains were going in different directions. 

Did you ever think how very lonely a cold 
house may be, with no child, in the winter ? No 
fire in its hearth, no fire in its kitchen stove, no 
pleasant gray smoke rising up from its chim¬ 
ney! And no merry voices of children to 
warm its chilly rooms! In the winter a child 
has oatmeal, and warm boots, and red mittens 
and a happy heart to keep warm with, but an 



316 


FRIENDLY TALES 


empty house hasn’t anything so comfortable. 
So the little house with green blinds in Our 
Village where Phyllis had lived all summer 
grew more and more chilly and lonely as the 
winter went on. By March, when the melt¬ 
ing icicles were making tears drop from its 
eaves, this house decided to do something very 
unusual. The first of April it did this unusual 
thing. By the first of May it had finished; it 
was done! 

What had the little white house with green 
blinds done in Our Village, the house that 
stood on the hill above the valley? Oh, that 
was its very own secret and it would spoil the 
story to tell the secret of a house in Our Vil¬ 
lage before the right time in the story. 

About the middle of May Billy’s family and 
Phyllis’ family both decided to come back to 
Our Village for the summer. And the fun of 
it was that neither of the children knew this. 
Their Towns were far apart and they had been 
too busy to write letters during the winter. 
So Phyllis came back the middle of May and 
unpacked her toys hoping that she would see 
Billy again. And Billy came back the middle 
of May, but he did not unpack his new tennis 



THE HOUSE THAT WENT DOWNHILL 317 

racket or his big new ball because he was so 
astonished. 

Billy was too old to believe in magic, and not 
yet old enough to find out that magic may be 
true. And here, right in Our Village before 
his very eyes, was a stranger bit of magic than 
any out of a fairy book. The little white 
house with green blinds in which Phyllis had 
lived the summer before was gone! Yes, sir, 
that house was gone, truly, honestly! In its 
place was a new garage, almost finished, but 
of the house in whose garden he and Phyllis 
had played there was not even a shingle left. 

Billy rubbed his eyes. Then he went into 
his little white house with blue blinds and tried 
to think. He couldn’t, so he went to bed as 
soon as it was dark still wondering. The next 
day was Sunday. Still in a dream, Billy ate 
his breakfast and went down to Sunday 
School. Why-ee! There at the door of the 
small white church in the valley of Our Vil¬ 
lage stood Phyllis; nice Phyllis, a year older, 
but the same Phyllis in a blue linen frock and' 
a hat with a wreath of pink roses. 

“I got to Sunday School first, Billy,” she 
said, her eyes full of laughter. 


318 


FRIENDLY TALES 


“Where’s your house?” he asked her. 

“Come and see,” said Phyllis as she led the 
way to the Common just behind Our Church. 
There, sitting as calmly as you please in a new 
flower garden and all trimmed with new vines, 
was the little white house with green blinds 
quite as if nothing had happened. Its shin¬ 
ing panes of window glass twinkled like laugh¬ 
ing eyes and the birds in its eaves twittered 
with the joke. Billy again rubbed his eyes. 

“It moved downhill, Billy,” Phyllis told 
him. “They move houses very nicely on roll¬ 
ers now, and father wanted to be nearer the 
railroad station, so he had the house moved 
early in the spring. I think,” she said softly, 
“that such a dear little white house with green 
blinds won’t feel so lonely down here as it did 
on top of a windy hill in the winter time. 
And,” Phyllis pulled Billy toward Our 
Church, for the bell was tolling now, “I don’t 
believe there was ever before a little girl whose 
house went to Sunday School before she did!” 


THE HOUSE THAT NEEDED 
FRIENDS 


T HE small brown bouse near the woods in 
Our Village bad been empty all winter. 
Tbe children knew that, for no smoke bad 
arisen from its chimney as they passed by 
with their greens at Christmas, and its win¬ 
dows had been white with frost. 

But when the first days of spring came and 
John and Jane and the others made trips to 
the woods for violets after school, they noticed 
something odd about the small brown house. 
The path which led to the gate was neatly 
brushed and raked. Starched white curtains 
hung at the windows. Smoke curled up above 
the little red chimney. 

“I do hope that a family with children has 
moved in!’’ Jane said to John as they came 
near the house one afternoon of April. 

“ Perhaps we shall be able to see them at 
the window,” John told her, and then the 
brother and sister looked at each other with 

319 


320 


FRIENDLY TALES 


wide open eyes. Each had seen the same won¬ 
der but could not believe it. The white cur¬ 
tains of the small brown house near the woods 
in Our Village had parted. A wee dark little 
face, no larger than a doll’s face, had, for a 
second, peered out. It had looked like the 
face of the smallest and oldest grandmother 
elf in any fairy book. The very odd part of 
the vision was that the strange little person 
had worn a red and white checked gingham 
sunbonnet, its strings tied closely under the 
dark little face. 

“Don’t run, Jane,” said John bravely at 
last. “We must both have made a mistake 
about it. I’ll take care of you.” 

And when the two returned that way with 
their violets the curtains were closed and only 
the smoke from the red chimney told of life in 
the little brown house. 

John and Jane did not go by that way for 
some time, but when a Saturday of May came, 
the sun gold and the sky blue, they did want to 
go to the woods and see if the Mayflowers were 
in bloom. They were halfway to the woods 
when they met some of the other children run¬ 
ning breathlessly toward them. 

“The little brown cottage that has been 


THE HOUSE THAT NEEDED FRIENDS 321 

empty for so long has a queer new tenant,’’ 
the other children told John and Jane. “It is 
a goblin or a brownie, we would say, except 
that it has four legs!” 

‘ ‘ Goblin! Four legs! What do you mean ? ’ ’ 
John asked. Neither he or Jane were going 
to tell what they had seen at the window of 
the little brown house. 

“We were going by on our way to the 
woods,” the other children told them, “and 
we saw a queer little gray thing sitting on the 
front steps of that house. It wore a red and 
white checked sunbonnet tied in a bow under 
its chin. It had on little wee red knitted 
stockings, four stockings, two pairs, you know! 
We didn’t go very close to the gate, for we 
didn’t think it would be safe. But we all saw 
it get up and run off, around toward the back 
of the house, and we all saw its long tail!” 

None of the children laughed, for this was a 
very serious matter. It was a matter to be 
thought about, this having a goblin, or a grand¬ 
mother elf, or whatever it was, come to be a 
neighbor and live all alone in a little brown 
house in Our Village. It was a friendly vil¬ 
lage, where everybody called on newcomers. 

But who, that was the question, was going 


322 


FRIENDLY TALES 


to call on this neighbor with four red stock¬ 
ings and a long tail ? 

“We must go right along down to the house 
and through the gate and see about this! ’ ’ 
John decided. His father was a selectman of 
Our Village so John and Jane knew what 
ought to be done. 

“I am scared,” Jane said, “but I am sorry 
for such a small, queer little person living all 
alone in a house. I have some sandwiches, 
and we could leave them on the doorstep and 
then run.” 

So all the children, feeling that the little 
brown house needed friends, went down to its 
front gate, the girls trying to be brave, and the 
boys trying to take care of the girls. At last 
they reached the house and opened the gate 
and went up the walk. 

It was all very still. There was not a sign 
of life anywhere, except that the children could 
smell the sweet perfume of freshly baked cook¬ 
ies. 

“It knows how to cook!” John said. 

“Here are its footprints!” said Jane. 

The children bent down to look where Jane 
pointed and there, in the soft gravel of the 
path which led around to the kitchen door, 


THE HOUSE THAT NEEDED FRIENDS 323 

they saw the prints of four wee stockinged 
feet. They needed stout hearts to keep on and 
reach the kitchen door and rap loudly on it. 

The door opened and there stood the nicest, 
most smiling little old lady who ever baked 
sugar cookies in Our Village. 

“Do come in!” she urged the children. “I 
have moved into this little brown house and I 
can’t help baking a batch of sugar cookies on 
Saturday, but I have no one to eat them. I 
did hope that someone would call. Come 
right in. There are plenty for each of you to 
have at least four!” 

The children were too surprised at first to 
speak. It was Jane who replied at last. 
“Thank you. We love cookies,” she said. 
“But how did you change yourself so quickly, 
just when we knocked on your door?” 

“We saw the prints of your four feet out 
in your path just now,” said John. 

The cooky lady looked puzzled. Then she 
sat down in a chair and she laughed until 
she had to wipe away the tears with her red 
and white checked apron. Presently, she 
called, 

“Toby, come Toby, good old pussy! Come 
in and see the children! ’ ’ 


324 


FRIENDLY TALES 


From underneath the lilac bushes where he 
had been hiding, in came a big gray pussy 
wearing red knitted stockings on all his four 
feet, and having a red and white checked ging¬ 
ham sunbonnet tied under his chin. 

“Toby is a very good cat,” explained the 
cooky lady, “but he will catch birds. So I 
made him a sunbonnet. It keeps him from 
listening for birds. I knitted him two pairs 
of stockings. They keep him from using his 
claws. Isn’t it a good plan ? ’ ’ 

The children agreed and they laughed as 
hard as had the cooky lady. They might have 
been laughing still if there had not been all 
those sugar cookies to eat, made sweeter by 
the friendliness of the little brown house. So 
often that was what happened in Our Village. 
A house that needed friends turned out to be 
one that wanted, itself, to be friendly! 


FRESH-AIR TUBBY 


A LTHOUGH none of the Brewster family 
had ever seen little Fresh-Air Tubby 
Taylor, they all knew just how he looked. And 
the Brewster family was very happy because 
Fresh-Air Tubby was coming all alone in the 
care of the train conductor, to make a long 
visit at the big, beautiful Brewster farm near 
Our Village. 

“ Fresh-Air Tubby will have a large appe¬ 
tite,” said Mother Brewster, and she went out 
into the kitchen and made brown bread and 
crullers and cookies and sponge cake. 

“ Fresh-Air Tubby will need a very large 
chair,” said Father Brewster, so he went out 
into the wood shed and cut the arms off Billy 
Brewster’s second best kindergarten chair to 
make it wide enough for a fat little boy. 

“ Fresh-Air Tubby will need plenty of wide 
overalls to play in,” said Granny Brewster, 
so she ripped Bobby Brewster’s new blue play 
overalls up the seams and set in pieces of red 

325 


326 


FRIENDLY TALES 


cloth, all the pieces she happened to have, to 
make them large enough for a wide little boy. 

“ Fresh-Air Tubby ought to have a strong 
enough velocipede to ride on,” said the Brew¬ 
ster twins, Billy and Bobby, so they got out 
their own, fine, new velocipede on which they 
took turns riding. They tightened the screws, 
and saw that the rubber tires were on securely, 
and that the seat was not in the least insecure. 
The twins were going to let Tubby ride their 
new velocipede all the time, but they did hope 
that he would not break it. They felt just as 
if they were getting it ready to hold a giant. 

In fact that is the way Sister Brewster felt 
about Tubby, as if he were a giant boy from a 
story. She remembered hearing the letters 
from the Fresh-Air Society in the City read 
aloud. “ Tubby has gained two pounds, ’ ’ they 
said or “Tubby has grown two inches.” 
Bear, dear, how Tubby must have stretched 
and spread in his five years that a Society 
should write those letters about his size! 

So Sister Brewster was waiting at the gate, 
holding it wide open, when the train came in, 
and the conductor who lived in Our Village 
and was through for the day came down the 
road with a little boy. “Here you are,” the 


FRESH-AIR TUBBY 


32? 


conductor said, leaving the boy at the Brew¬ 
sters’ gate, “the best place in the world for 
you to get fat!” 

Indeed the boy needed some fat! Sister had 
never seen such a thin, scrawny little boy in 
,her life. He looked as if the wind would 
blow him up over the house tops if he were not 
tied to something. He carried a thin um¬ 
brella, a thin bag, and he wore a small, thin 
coat. 

He wasn’t little Fresh-Air Tubby Taylor at 
all! Oh, no, indeed he was not! But that 
made no difference with the welcome the 
Brewster family gave the all-alone, thin, 
scrawny little boy who seemed too tired and 
strange to even tell them his name. 

Sister opened the gate still wider to wel¬ 
come the stranger, and Billy and Bobby took 
his thin little hands and led him up to the 
back porch. Father lifted him up in the chair 
with no arms that he had fixed for a fat little 
boy, and Mother brought out a glass of milk 
and a brown bread sandwich and a cruller and 
three cookies and a piece of sponge cake for 
him. The strange boy sat there and ate and 
ate and the Brewster family, watching him, 
felt very happy that they had been able to take 


328 


FRIENDLY TALES 


him in and feed him. Granny came down¬ 
stairs with the blue play overalls, let out at the 
seams with red, and she held them up to the 
strange boy. 

“Much too large,” she said, “but I’m not 
going to stop to make them smaller to fit him. 
He must put them on just as soon as he gets 
enough to eat and go and play. That is what 
he needs, to play on this farm and fill himself 
with fresh air and put some flesh on his bones. ’ ’ 

“And ride on little Fresh-Air Tubby Tay¬ 
lor’s velocipede,” said Billy. 

The boy stopped in the middle of a bite of 
sponge cake to look in surprise at Billy. “I 
haven’t any velocipede,” he said. “My 
mother and father never could buy me one.” 

“But you can ride on the velocipede we fixed 
for Fresh-Air Tubby Taylor,” Bobby Brew¬ 
ster added, “we made it strong so that he 
couldn’t break it. You won’t fall off.” 

The strange boy looked still more puzzled. 
Then he spoke. “But I am Fresh-Air Tubby 
Taylor!” he told them. 

Mother was the first to be able to speak. 
“But you aren’t at all the shape of a tub!” 
she said. 

“So pindling!” said Granny. 


FRESH-AIR TUBBY 


329 


“Don’t even fill a kindergarten chair!” said 
Father. 

“How did you get your name?” asked the 
twins. 

It was Sister who said what they all were 
thinking. “Suppose we hadn’t taken you in 
through our gate!” 

Thin little Fresh-Air Tubby Taylor tried to 
answer all their questions at once. ‘ ‘ They call 
me Tubby, because I’m not fat,” he said. 
“It’s a kind of a joke, but I expect to get fat 
here. ’ ’ 

And he did. Tubby stayed at the Brewster 
farm near Our Village all summer and he 
went back to the City as round as a little tub. 




MARA’S STARLING 

T HE baby starling fell out of its nest in 
the elm tree in the early summer and 
Frances found it. 

The mother bird was about, calling fretfully, 
and perhaps she would have found a way to 
care for her little one down there in the grass, 
but Frances did not give her a chance. She 
picked up the baby starling gently and put it 
in the big wicker bird cage which they had 
found in the attic of the bungalow when they 
moved in. It was a very pretty cage and 
Frances hung it, with the drooping little bird 
shut inside, at the door of the playhouse. 

The starling would not eat the crumbs that 
Frances put in the cage, or drink the water. 
It just stood, its feathers bunched and drag¬ 
gled, at the back of the cage. 

4 4 Perhaps a few fresh green leaves would 
make it feel better,” the gardener said. So 
Frances strewed the whole floor of the cage 
with grass and daisies and leaves. But when 

330 


MARA’S STARLING 


331 


she went near it, even then, the baby starling 
fluttered about in a frightened way and its 
little heart beat as if it would burst. 

“It would be homesick at first,” Frances 
said. “I will just leave it alone until it gets 
used to the cage.” 

There was a fair in Our Town for several 
days and Frances went to it with her mother to 
see the sleek cattle, the beautiful flowers and 
the colored embroideries. They went to the 
fair three days and then Frances suddenly 
thought about the caged bird. 

“I must give my starling fresh water,” she 
said. 

She ran to the playhouse at the end of the 
garden. Then she rubbed her eyes, wonder¬ 
ing if she could be dreaming. The door of 
the cage was open and the cage itself was 
empty., The starling was gone. There, in 
front of the cage, stood a strange, dusky 
haired little girl who wore a bright red fez 
and a black velvet jacket embroidered with 
gold. She pointed to the cage and her dark 
eyes flashed as she spoke, 

“I set the bird of my country free,” she 
said. “It was cruel of you to shut it up in a 
cage. It flew away. ’ ’ 


332 


FRIENDLY TALES 


“Why did you do that?” Frances asked. 
“I didn’t hurt the starling. I only wanted to 
take care of it. ’ ’ 

“I was going by after taking'some of my 
grandmother’s fine needlework to the fair,” 
the strange little girl explained, “and I saw 
the bird beating its wings against the cage. 
In my country, Serbia, the starling is our 
most loved bird, just as your eagle, for free¬ 
dom. I had to open the door and let it out.” 

“I didn’t think of its wanting to be free 
when I put it in,” Frances said. “I am glad, 
then, that you opened the cage. ’ ’ She thought 
a moment. Then she spoke, “We’re going to 
the fair in the car pretty soon. Won’t you 
come with us—” she stopped, not knowing the 
little girl’s name. 

“Mara,” the Serbian child said. “We 
haven’t been here very long, and I don’t know 
many children. It would be nice to ride with 
you.” 

“First we will have dinner and then look at 
my dolls,” Frances said delightedly. 

Mara clasped her hands in joy. “At home 
I have a little red cap for a doll like my cap,” 
she said, touching her fez. “I will give it to 
you. ’ ’ 


MARA’S STARLING 


333 


Just then the two little girls heard a joyous 
bird note, faint and far away, but sweet with 
happiness. The bird of Serbia was thanking 
Mara for her gift of freedom. 


THE SINGING TRAMP 


W HEN the Tramp, this very small 
Tramp dressed in dingy brown, came 
to the City, there was not any place ready 
for him to stay. He had come in from the 
country and he wanted a tree in which to sit 
and sing, and an empty house, even a very 
small house, in which to stay when it rained, 
and a few crumbs of bread to keep him from 
starving. 

And to pay for these, he would show the City 
that he was a Singing Tramp; not, of course, 
a nightingale or a canary or a thrush, but just 
a cheerful little feathered brown Tramp who 
could sing among the City’s chimney pots and 
the City’s garbage pails and the City’s bare 
branches, sing about the country and wild 
flowers and a waked-up brook. 

But nobody welcomed the Tramp to the 
City. He came in on a day when the street 
flower carts smelled of the spring and the 
bricks of the buildings were warm and bright 

334 


THE SINGING TRAMP 


335 


with the sun, but the Tramp went here and 
there, trying to find a place to rest, and there 
was none. 

He tried drain pipes and the gutters and 
the ledges of the mail boxes and niches in walls, 
but wherever he went someone frightened him 
or a Street Cat turned her great green eyes on 
him. And although he was a Singing Tramp, 
the noises of the City were so loud that nobody 
seemed to be able to hear him sing. 

There was not anything for the Tramp to 
eat. The garbage pails had covers, and the 
Street Sweepers swept away all the crumbs. 
The loaves of bread were all behind heavy 
glass windows and things looked badly for 
him. At least, they would have looked badly 
for the Singing Tramp if he had not been such 
a brave little fellow. He made up his mind 
that he would make himself a home in the 
City; he would establish himself there, and 
then he was quite sure that he would be able 
to make a living if only by his cheerful voice 
which the City needed very much. 

So the Tramp explored the City until he 
found a Gable, a nice, exclusive, private Gable 
on a fairly quiet street, just the best place for 
a home. Next, the Tramp went scouting for 


336 


FRIENDLY TALES 


a nice, long piece of string, and he found one 
hanging from a tall building where there were 
looms and spindles whirring loudly inside. It 
was just the bit of string which the Tramp 
needed and he went back with it to his Gable. 

But the string was too long for so small a 
fellow to manage very well, carrying it as he 
had to all coiled up over the roofs of buildings 
and in and out of a crowd of smoking chim¬ 
neys. The Tramp reached his Gable, hut he 
found out that a dreadful thing had happened 
to him. He was all tied up in that string. It 
was wound about him and had twisted itself 
until he was not able to move. All he could do 
was to hang from his Gable and call in his 
small voice for help. 

“Well, now this will he the end of me,” 
thought the little Singing Tramp. “If the 
City didn’t hear me sing, it never will hear 
me call. ’ ’ And it did seem as if that would be 
the end of him. 

Hanging there from his Gable, the Tramp 
saw far below him, the narrow, noisy Street, 
everyone hurrying along on his own business, 
no one looking up toward the sky. 

4 4 Tweet, tweet! I’m almost falling ! 9 9 called 
the Tramp. 


THE SINGING TRAMP 


337 


And he was heard! A Child going by 
looked up and saw the little brown, ragged 
Tramp in trouble. The Child ran as fast as 
he could and told a Boy. The Boy looked up 
and then ran as fast as he could and told a 
Man. The Man looked up and went as fast as 
he could and told a Policeman. The Police¬ 
man went as fast as he could and told a Fire¬ 
man. The Fireman went as fast as he could 
and fetched a ladder, but the ladder was not 
long enough to reach the Tramp’s Gable. And 
everybody came to that Street, crowds and 
crowds of people, all standing down there and 
looking up to see what was the matter. They 
saw the Singing Tramp hanging from his 
Gable, all tied up in his nice, long piece of 
string with which he had planned to start a 
home for himself! 

Jingle, jangle, get out of the way, clear the 
Street— jingle, jangle! That was the ambu¬ 
lance coming. Like the wind it came down 
that Street! 

“What is the matter? Who needs me?” 
shouted the Ambulance Driver as the crowd 
parted and let him drive through. So they 
pointed to the Gable from which the little 
Tramp was almost ready to fall and a longer 


338 


FRIENDLY TALES 


ladder was set up for the Ambulance Driver, 
who climbed up it to rescue the Tramp. 

Very tenderly he unwound the string from 
a helpless claw, and then he climbed down the 
ladder very softly so as not to frighten the 
Tramp any more than he was already fright¬ 
ened. And the little brown Tramp stood, safe 
and sound, on the edge of his Gable looking 
down into the Street. Now had come his time 
to show the City what he could do. He sang 
to them. 

He wasn’t, of course, a nightingale or even 
a canary, but he chirped as loudly and as well 
as he could to thank them for keeping him 
from falling, and to tell them that, even if he 
was only a Tramp, he was a Singing Tramp. 

“A sparrow, nothing but a tramp sparrow!” 
they said to themselves as they listened to him, 
“but how pleasant it is to hear him singing 
about the spring here in the City! ’ ’ 


THE LITTLE BOY WITH THE 

EUR CAP 


I THERE’S a new little boy come to live 
I in the house at the far end of Our 
Street, but I am not going to play with him. 
He wears a fur cap and it isn’t winter yet,” 
John said to his next-door friend, Marjorie. 

“Neither will I play with him, for he doesn’t 
know how to speak English very well,” Mar¬ 
jorie said, and she told Francis, who had also 
watched the stranger boy. Francis told 
Philip. 

“There’s a new little boy come to live in 
the house at the end of Our Street but we’re 
not going to play with him, because he wears 
a fur cap when it isn’t winter yet, and he 
doesn’t speak English well,” Francis said. 

“Dear me,” Philip said, “I have seen that 
boy, too, and I wasn’t going to play with him, 
for he has such a queer name. His name is 
Nicholas.’’ And just then Philip met a little 
girl friend, Helen, and told her all about it. 

339 







340 


FRIENDLY TALES 


“There’s a new little boy come to live in the 
house at the end of Our Street,” he told Helen, 
“but we are not going to play with him be¬ 
cause he wears a fur cap and it isn’t winter 
yet, and he doesn’t know how to speak Eng¬ 
lish very well, and his name is Nicholas.” 

“I have seen that boy, too,” Helen said, 
“and I didn’t want to play with him, because 
he was eating his supper from a copper bowl 
as he sat on his front steps. He was eating 
dark bread and milk.” 

There were so many unusual things about 
this little stranger boy that all the children in 
the neighborhood knew about them by the 
morning of the first day of school. They 
watched from the school gate as they saw him 
coming to school. 

“Why, Roger is bringing him,” the children 
exclaimed, and when the two came through the 
gate, and Roger showed the new boy the way 
to the principal’s office, the others crowded 
around him. 

“Do you know that we are not playing with 
that boy, Roger'?” they said. 

“Why not'?” Roger asked. 

“He’s a new boy,” they said, “who lives in 
the house at the end of Our Street. He wears 



THE LITTLE BOY WITH THE FUR CAP 341 

a fur cap when it is not winter yet, and he 
can’t speak English very well, and his name is 
Nicholas, and he eats his supper of dark bread 
and milk from a copper bowl.” 

The children thought that Roger, whose 
many times great grandfather had come to our 
country in the Mayflower, would be surprised 
to hear all this, but all that Roger said was, 
“That doesn’t matter.” 

Just then the bell rang, and they all went in 
and sat down in the primary room for the 
opening exercises, and the teacher said, 

“Has any boy or girl an American flag to 
hold up here by my desk and wave while we 
sing the Star Spangled Banner?” 

And then something else was discovered 
about the new boy. He took from inside his 
jacket, where he had hidden it so as to keep it 
safe, a little American flag. He held up the 
Stars and Stripes. Nicholas was the only 
boy in the whole primary class who had 
thought about bringing a flag on the first day 
of school. 

So Nicholas waved the Stars and Stripes as 
they sang the Star Spangled Banner and all 
the children clapped for him. No one thought 
about his fur cap, for it was out in the cloak 



342 


FRIENDLY TALES 


room, and he had a most cheerful smile. The 
teacher said that he would learn English very 
soon, and by the time that noon came they 
were all so hungry that they could have eaten 
dark bread and milk. The children had a 
wonderful idea then about Nicholas’ name. 
They remembered that Santa Claus was called 
by that same name sometimes. 

But the best part of it was that all the chil¬ 
dren wanted now to play with Nicholas. 


THEIR BEST CLUB 


4 


4 4 \ 7C THAT fun it would be to have a club, 
V V a that all the children who go 
to our Primary class could belong to!” Bobby 
said to Alex as they walked home from school 
together. Alex was a little boy from Russia 
who had come to their town to live, and the 
Primary children were trying to think of 
things that they could do to help him to feel at 
home in America. 

“That will be fine,” Alex said, “and here 
comes Pietro. We will ask him to join our 
club.” 

“We are going to have a club that all the 
children who go to our Primary class will be¬ 
long to, Pietro,” Bobby said to the little Italian 
boy. “Would you like to belong to it?” 

How Pietro’s eyes shone! “That will be 
fine,” he said, “and there goes Jean. Can he 
belong to our Club % ’ 7 

“Wait a minute, Jean,” Bobby called to the 
little French boy. “We are going to have a 
club that all the children who go to our Pri- 

343 


344 


FRIENDLY T'ALES 


mary class can belong to. Would you like to 
join?” 

Jean’s red cheeks grew rosier with pleas¬ 
ure. “That will be fine!” he said. And so 
the four boys sat down on the curbing in front 
of Bobby’s house to elect the officers of their 
club. 

Bobby was the president and Alex was the 
vice-president. Pietro was the manager and 
Jean was the chairman. They decided to 
name the club Our Best Club, and then they 
were all ready to start it when Alex had an 
idea. 

“What is our club going to do?” he asked. 

That was a very important matter, and the 
boys found out that they didn’t know what 
they were going to do. They could not think 
of a single thing that a club of little boys could 
do to make it a Best Club. They were still 
sitting there, looking very sober, when along 
came the Street Cleaner in his white suit and 
pushing his odd, two wheeled cart in front of 
him. 

“Why are you boys sitting on the curbing 
and looking so glum?” the Street Cleaner 
asked them. 

“Why, we have a club, but we don’t know 


THEIR BEST CLUB 


345 


what to do in it,” Bobby said. “Do yon 
know?” 

The Street Cleaner laughed, and he said, 
“I don’t know much about clubs, but I do see 
something that you four boys could do to help 
me. Run along the sidewalk and pick up all 
those papers that the school children have scat¬ 
tered. Catch them before the wind does and 
put them in my cart.’* 

That was fun to do. The boys had a race 
with the wind and the papers, and won it. 
They put them all in the Street Cleaner’s cart 
and he wheeled it along to another street, for 
their block was now very neat and clean. But 
when this friend of theirs was out of sight, 
they stood together on the corner and felt sober 
again, for they had a Best Club but nothing 
for a club to do. Just then the nice Blue-Coat 
Policeman, who stood at their corner and 
stopped the traffic so that the children could 
cross to school, came along. 

“Why are you boys standing on the corner 
and looking so glum?” the Blue-Coat asked 
them. 

“Why, we have a club but we don’t know 
what to do in it,” Bobby said. “Do you 
know?” 


346 


FRIENDLY T'ALES 


The Blue-Coat smiled and then he said, “I 
don’t know much about boys’ clubs, but you 
could help me very much if you would try to 
read all the signs on the way to school and tell 
them to the other children who don’t notice 
them, or can’t read them.” 

That sounded like a new game, so the four 
little boys ran off to do what the Blue-Coat had 
asked them to. 

“Keep off the grass,” Bobby read. “That 
is so that the Park may stay green.” 

“Hospital Street,” Alex read, very proud 
that he could read it. 

“That means that we ought not to run and 
shout on that block,” Bobby explained. 

“Keep your garbage pails covered,” Pietro 
read. ‘ ‘ I will tell that to my father who keeps 
the vegetable store.” 

“Do not deface,” Jean read from a freshly 
painted letter-box. “That means never to 
mark it with a knife or a pencil. ’ ’ 

Just then the four little boys met their 
teacher, and she said, “What are you boys 
doing that makes you look so cheerful?” 

“Helping the Street Cleaner, and helping 
the Blue-Coat,” Bobby said. 

“Why, you must have a club if you are do- 


THEIR BEST CLUB 


347 


ing all those fine things, ” their teacher said, 
“a club that all the Primary children would 
like to belong to!” 

Bobby and Alex and Pietro and Jean looked 
at each other and then they began to laugh. 
They knew now how to have a Best Club. It 
was going to be a club to take care of Our 
Town as well as a child could. 


THE YARD THAT GREW 

T UNIS was the little gardener of Our 
Block, although few of the other chil¬ 
dren knew it. His back yard, with his fath¬ 
er’s help, was laid out in neat, square beds, 
some for the red and yellow tulips whose bulbs 
his grandfather sent from Holland, and some 
for vegetables. Every day of the spring and 
summer Tunis worked there after school, and 
his yard was like a little bit of The Hague. 

Jack was the little circus man of the block, 
although Tunis did not know it. Jack’s father 
had put up bars and a swing and a trapeze in 
his yard, and Jack could climb and jump like 
a real athlete. He had built some play animal 
cages of wood for his toy animals, and painted 
them. These were out in his yard, and he had 
circus parades with them. Jack knew all 
about a circus, for his father used to work in 
one. 

Katie was the little pastry cook of the block, 
although none of the other children knew it. 

348 


THE YARD THAT GREW 349 

Katie had a sand pile, and ever so many tin 
dishes, and spoons. She baked bread and rolls 
and tarts and all sorts of pies in the sunshine, 
and then she sighed when she looked at them, 
for there was no one to look at them, or share 
them with her. Katie’s mother baked such 
good pies and cakes in her bright kitchen. 

One day there was a very strong wind on 
the block, and it loosened a board in Tunis’ 
fence. He peeped through, and there he saw 
Jack turning a most wonderful hand spring 
in his yard. Tunis saw, too, all the circus ap¬ 
paratus that Jack’s father had built for him. 

At the same time, the wind blew one of 
Katie’s dolls’ dish towels over her fence into 
Jack’s yard. In a second Jack climbed up on 
top of the fence to give it back, and he saw 
Katie’s large sand pile. 

“Oh, how nice!” Tunis sighed from his peep 
hole, looking at Jack’s yard. 

“Oh, how nice!” sighed Jack, thinking of 
the circus ground he could lay out in Katie’s 
sand pile. 

As for Katie, she couldn’t sigh any more 
than she always did, longing for some little 
boys and girls to bake for. 

The next day, the Neighborhood Lady from 


350 


FRIENDLY T'ALES 


the big house around the corner called at 
Katie’s house to see if Katie’s mother could 
come and cook dinner for them, and she heard 
all about the yards that were shut away from 
each other by fences. Her eyes twinkled, for 
she had a nice thought, but what it was she 
did not tell. 

But the children found out; oh, how hap¬ 
pily they found out! 

One morning when Tunis and Jack and 
Katie and the other children on the block 
awoke, they found out that the fences between 
their play yards had vanished. There was 
one, long play place at the back where they 
could help Tunis with his gardening, and 
swing on Jack’s trapeze. There were more 
sand piles and more dishes and more swings 
and balls and bean bags, and a Play Lady 
from the Neighborhood House to help with 
the play. 

All the good times on that block were better, 
and the mud pies larger, the circus parades 
longer, and the gardens brighter, because the 
back yards of Our Block had jumped over the 
fences and joined hands in a playground. 


THEIR BLOCK PARTY 


* *T It T OULDN’T it be nice to have a party 
YY on Our Block ?” Harold said to 
Newton one day. “We could have it in our 
garage and trim the front fence with red, 
white and blue, and ask all the children to come 
to it.” 

“That would be jolly,” Newton said, “but 
how could we invite all the children in Our 
Block? It is different from a good many 
other blocks in this town, because it is so mixed 
up. There is Hans, whose father has the shop 
for mending shoes, and Angela who lives in 
that new, tall tenement house and is too shy to 
play with us. You know little Mike, too, 
whose mother keeps the laundry, and Hugo 
from the vegetable store?” 

“Yes, I know,” Harold said. “They have 
all come here to live from other countries and 
of course they wouldn’t know what to do at 
one of our parties. But it isn’t a block party 
unless we ask everyone who lives on Our Block. 
Suppose we try it, Newton, and if those other 

351 


352 


FRIENDLY TALES 


children don’t know how to behave, we’ll send 
them home.” 

“That’s it, we’ll probably have to send them 
all home,” Newton agreed. 

It was ever so much fun getting ready for 
the block party. Harold’s father moved the 
car out of the garage for them so as to give 
them plenty of room, and Newton, who lived 
next door, brought over all his games to add to 
Harold’s. Newton’s mother came over on the 
day of the party to help make sandwiches, and 
the Stars and Stripes floated from the flag pole 
in the front yard. 

Then the children came, those who had al¬ 
ways lived on Our Block, and those who had 
just come to it. The children who had always 
lived on Our Block wore white shoes and white 
suits and white dresses. They stood on one 
side of the garage. The children who had 
just come to live there wore bright handker¬ 
chiefs around their necks and odd, clumsy 
shoes. They stood on the other side of the 
garage. Perhaps they would never have left 
their sides if Harold had not stood in the 
centre and held out a whole bunch of red, 
white and blue rosettes to wear and asked the 
children to come and get them. 


THEIR BLOCK PARTY 


353 


They began to scramble and laugh then, and 
the older ones helped the little ones to pin on 
the colors. After that they all sang Three 
Cheers For The Bed, White and Blue, and the 
fun went on. 

It was a most surprising kind of fun, be¬ 
cause it was the new children of Our Block 
who helped the most with it. Hugo had come 
dressed up in a Gypsy costume that the family 
had brought from Bohemia, and his father 
came too, with their little white donkey that 
brought the vegetables from the farm every 
morning. All the children had rides, in turn, 
on the donkey. Angela came with her uncle 
and his hurdy-gurdy. She carried a tam¬ 
bourine strung gaily with ribbons, and shook 
it in time to the music. Mike brought a large 
bag of green stone marbles that his grand¬ 
father had sent him from the Old Country. 
The boys drew a large chalk ring on the garage 
floor and had a fine time playing marbles. 

Hans, though, had not come and all the chil¬ 
dren wondered why. Suddenly he appeared 
at the gate and everybody ran to meet him, for 
he came tugging a little new oak tree in his 
arms. He and his older brother had gone all 
the long way to the woods and dug up the tree, 


354 


FRIENDLY TALES 


for Hans thought that it would be nice to 
plant an oak tree at the party on Our Block. 

So the last fun of the party came when the 
children planted the new oak tree on the edge 
of the pavement in the middle of the block. 
They gave it plenty of water to drink and 
wrapped up its trunk in burlap to keep it 
warm until the roots should have a firm foot¬ 
hold. Then they made a circle, holding hands, 
around the tree, and sang America . 

“It was a very nice block party, wasn’t it?” 
Harold said to Newton as the last child went 
home. 

“Yes; it un-mixed us,” Newton said, laugh¬ 
ing, “we’re all friends now on Our Block.” 


BILLY’S WILDCAT 


C ARRYING- the basket carefully, Billy 
met Tom as soon as he opened his front 

gate. 

‘ 4 What have you got in your basket, Billy ?’ 9 
Tom asked. 

Billy made sure that the cover was down 
and then he looked up and down the street to 
see that no one would hear him. 

“It’s a young wildcat!” he told Tom. 
“Whee-e!” said Tom. “From that wild 
animal show that failed up in Town last week, 
I suppose. What are you doing with it, 
Billy?” 

“I’m giving it a walk,” Billy told him, 
hurrying on down the street before the basket 
spoke and told Tom that it held the last of 
old Mouser’s kittens which Billy was taking 
for his mother to Aunt Ellen, who wanted one 
of Mouser’s family. Also, Tom might think 
it strange for a wildcat to be taking a walk in 
a large basket instead of on its own feet. 

355 


356 


FRIENDLY TALES 


Billy had told the truth. It was a very wild 
little cat, always scratching and mewing. He 
had also told a lie, trying to make himself out 
important. But it was wonderful how Tom 
had fallen in with the idea. The wild animal 
show, its draggled tents still on the fair 
grounds just outside of Our Town, might have 

given a boy a little wildcat. That boy might 

_ * 

have been Billy. 

Billy heard Tom’s voice coming down the 
block. “When will you bring it home, Billy? 
I and the crowd will be at your house to see 
it any time you say!” 

Billy pretended that he did not hear. 
Trouble already! How would he explain to 
the children about his empty basket after he 
had delivered Mouser’s kitten? 

“Billy Banks has got a little tame wildcat 
from the animal show!” So the news spread 
among the boys and girls of Our Town. It 
was news! 

“He will be home around five o’clock,” 
Billy’s mother told them as they asked about 
him. Some of them tried to trail Billy, but 
he went to Aunt Ellen’s as soon as he could, 
for he was getting more and more worried. 

Once you told even a half lie to make your- 


BILLY’S WILDCAT 


357 


self important, Billy saw, you never could tell 
what it would get you into. He delivered 
Mouser’s kitten from the big basket and sat 
in Aunt Ellen’s kitchen for quite a while. 
At last, after he had eaten all of her ginger¬ 
bread a boy could and be polite, he started to¬ 
ward the fair grounds. A mangy lion, a thin 
bear, a cage of monkeys were there. Perhaps 
there might be a young wildcat, not too wild 
or too large to fit in his basket, Billy thought. 
That would be his only hope. Perhaps he 
could do some work around the grounds to 
pay for it. 

A boy older than Billy was sweeping out 
the tents. He had a lot of pails to be filled 
with water later for the animals. He listened 
to Billy and promised him a wildcat, a small 
one, if he would help him. Billy rolled up his 
sleeves and went to work. 

My, but it was hard, not a bit the fun one 
would think it to be around an animal show. 
Billy had not known there were so many pea¬ 
nut shells in the world as he had to sweep out 
of the sawdusty tents, or how heavy pails of 
water could be. The lion was not so mangy 
but that he could growl, and he scared Billy 
into spilling several buckets of water. It was 


358 


FRIENDLY TALES 


a long way from the hydrant to the cages. 
At four o’clock Billy’s hands were sore and 
his back ached, but he went to the boy hope¬ 
fully for his pay. The boy offered him 
twenty-five cents. 

“We haven’t got any little wildcats,” he 
told Billy. “I thought you were only joking 
when you asked for one.” 

Billy could have cried. He didn’t take the 
quarter in his haste to leave the fair grounds. 
What was he going to do? 

He had said that he owned a young wildcat 
and that he was out giving it a walk. All the 
children would know that by this time. His 
mother would know that he couldn’t have been 
at his Aunt Ellen’s all this time and would 
ask what he had been doing in the meantime. 
Billy went with a hang-dog feeling toward 
home. He knew things were going to be bad 
for him. 

How bad they were he found out. His yard 
was full of children, crowding the front gate, 
sitting on the garage doorstep. 

“Hello, there, old Bill!” said the boys. 

“The wildcat got home before you, didn’t it, 
Billy?” laughed some of the girls. Then 
Billy heard a kind of growling like that of a 


BILLY'S WILDCAT 


359 


wild animal coming from the garage. Dirty, 
tired, ashamed, Billy dragged himself in. He 
must face the music, but what did the children 
mean? 

Just then he found out. A louder growl, 
a scratching, a flash of yellow fur, and out of 
the garage came the wildcat! It was Tom 
dressed up in his big sister’s tiger skin coat 
and wearing a cat mask with long whiskers. 
[He dashed around the yard like mad. The 
girls just doubled up with the fun. The boys 
told Billy how clever he and Tom had been 
to plan the surprise. Once, though, as the 
wildcat pranced up to Billy, Tom whispered 
to him: 

“Your mother told me about Mouser’s kit¬ 
ten,” he said. 

‘ 4 Thanks! ’ ’ said Billy. 

Good Tom to have helped him out of the 
scrape! That was a way playmates could be 
true to the Crowd, help any boy or girl out 
of a silly scrape. Tom had understood how 
Mouser’s kitten had run away with Billy’s 
fancy. But no kitten would ever again turn 
into a wildcat in his hands, Billy decided. 
No, sir, he was going to be honest with the 
Crowd. 


THE WONDERFUL DOORS 


T HE long, dark hall of the big apartment 
house in the city looked to Joan and 
John like a cavern in a fairy tale. They had 
moved to Our City from the country. In the 
country the doors were wide open in the sum¬ 
mer time. Here, the doors were tight shut, 
and the people hurried through the hall with¬ 
out speaking to their neighbors. 

“What was that, J ohn'F’ Joan asked as they 
heard a rap and then the sound of a creaking 
hinge. 

John looked out into the hall. “It was 
only the vegetable man, and they shut the door 
so quickly after him,” he said. “I wonder 
if there are children back of some of those 
doors with whom we could play.” 

“We will never find out,” Joan said in a 
lonesome voice, “so many of the city doors 
are locked. Still—” a splendid idea had come 
to Joan. She told John, and they decided to 
try it when the express crate came from Uncle 
John in the country. 

360 


THE WONDERFUL DOORS 


361 


Peter, the little lame boy who lived right 
across the hall from Joan and John, was feel¬ 
ing ever so lonely one morning not long after 
that. All that Peter could see from the win¬ 
dow was a warm street full of carts of flowers 
and fruit, and he could not get down to smell 
of the flowers. But all at once his door bell 
rang and his mother opened it, to find a big 
bunch of country flowers outside, black and 
yellow daisies, golden buttercups, and sweet 
pink clover. 

At the same time, almost, every other family, 
whose doors opened upon the dark hall of the 
big apartment house, heard a ring, and found 
a surprise outside of their apartments. 

The little old lady, who lived all alone and 
knitted for the baby shops, found a pat of 
country butter wrapped in some cool country 
grape leaves. Concetta and Pietro, whose 
father was a hurdy-gurdy man and had to 
leave them alone until supper time, found just 
the good things he loved for a salad, a head of 
crisp lettuce, a rosy tomato, and some white 
onions like big pearls. And there was a coun¬ 
try gift for each of the other families, a bunch 
of vegetables, or some flowers. 

Joan and John were not able to hide behind 


362 


FRIENDLY TALES 


their own doors before they were caught. 
Why, the dark hall was suddenly bright with 
the laughter and thanks of all the neighbors, 
and the flowers and vegetables in their hands. 

“ Uncle John sends us a crate of good things 
from his farm every week,” Joan explained, 
“so we could spare these.” 

“We wanted to find out who lived behind 
these doors,” John said. 

Then the hall neighbors laughed again and 
said, “Thank you,” again, and Joan and John 
discovered that there were surprises for them 
behind those doors. 

Peter, sitting there in his wheeled chair all 
day, had learned to carve toys of wood, and he 
taught John. The little old lady helped Joan 
to knit herself a sweater for the fall. Con- 
cetta and Pietro knew such merry singing 
games, and the four invited other boys and 
girls into the courtyard to play together. 

But the best part of it all was the way the 
hall doors felt after that. They stayed open 
all day, the light from the windows inside mak¬ 
ing the hall bright and cheerful. 


WHEN THE BALLOON BOY 
BLEW UP 


A LL the children were ever so fond of the 
Balloon Boy. Every afternoon, al¬ 
though it was fall now and sometimes quite 
cool and windy, he was there in Our Park. 
Every afternoon when the sun shone, Tommy 
and Dick and Muriel and all the others saw 
the Balloon Boy as soon as they came inside 
the big park gates, a little boy only as old as 
they. And he was just covered with balloons. 

There were big fat red balloons for brave 
children, and big fat blue balloons for happy 
children, and big fat yellow balloons for cheer¬ 
ful children. And a balloon cost only ten 
cents. Until it blew up, a child could fly it 
at the end of a long string, up, up, up among 
the bright leaves of the trees in Our Park. 

“Where do you live, Balloon Boy?” Muriel 
asked him one day, but he only smiled and 
shook his head. “Do you live in a big house, 
made of bubbles and rainbow colors?” she 

363 


364 


FRIENDLY TALES 


went on. The Balloon Boy peeped out from 
under his huge bunch of balloons that made 
a great colored roof over his head, and smiled 
until one could see all his white teeth. 

“He can’t speak English,” Dick said to 
Muriel. “I’ve seen him coming from the 
street down-town where all the hurdy-gurdys 
and the push-carts and the banana men and 
the tambourine people live.” 

“Well, I think the Balloon Boy is a good 
fellow,” said Tommy, “tugging all those bal¬ 
loons here every day and never having a 
chance to fly one himself. I wish we could 
do something for him.” But there didn’t 
seem to be anything that he or the other chil¬ 
dren could do. Up and down the walks of 
Our Park went the Balloon Boy, at least the 
children could see his legs going along under 
his load that was very much too heavy. One 
balloon was light, but think of carrying 
twenty-five and more! 

One bright day in the late fall, something 
happened in Our Park. A man came with a 
Donkey and a basket cart and gave the chil¬ 
dren rides for a nickel. It was great fun, for 
the little donkey trotted along at a good speed 
and the man drove as far as the other end of 



WHEN THE BALLOON BOY BLEW UP 365 

Our Park. Dick paid for Muriel to ride with 
him, and then Tommy took him for a ride, and 
after that they both took Muriel. When they 
came back to their starting place the last time 
it was growing late. It felt frosty. The wind 
was blowing up. 

“Let’s look up the Balloon Boy,” Muriel 
said, “and if he has sold all his balloons this 
afternoon, we can walk along home with him 
as far as we go.” 

“And buy him a bag of chestnuts,” sug¬ 
gested Tommy. 

So the children went along together to the 
place near the park gate where the Balloon 
Boy was sure to be found, but he was not there. 
They looked in the street, but he was not 
there. They looked in all the park walks, but 
he was not in sight. The queerest part of it 
was that not one of the red, and blue, and yel¬ 
low balloons was to be seen either. They 
seemed to have disappeared with the Balloon 
Boy. 

Suddenly the children heard a little sound 
like someone calling, only it came from way 
up high. Tommy looked up in the air, and 
then he shouted, “Oh, dear, there are the bal¬ 
loons going up to the sky above that tree! 



366 


FRIENDLY TALES 


And there are the Balloon Boy’s feet. He is 
blowing up!” 

“The wind must have taken him when we 
were all haying our donkey rides,” Muriel 
said, almost crying, “and he couldn’t hold 
down so many balloons. ’’ 

“We’ll have to rescue him somehow,” cried 
Dick starting to climb up the tree. 

Poor little Balloon Boy! It was just as 
Muriel had said. A strong wind had pulled 
at the strings of his huge bunch of balloons, 
and up they had gone taking him with them 
into the low branches of the tree. He held 
on with one hand and gripped the balloons 
with the other, but he would not be able to 
keep his grasp on the branch much longer. 
And the balloons tugged and pulled, all the 
time trying to pull him up higher. 

“I’ve got his feet!” Dick called down at 
last. “Come on up, Tommy, and cut the 
strings of the balloons. If you don’t we’ll 
both be blown up!” So Tommy went up the 
tree, which was not too high, and down below 
Muriel called to all the other children, “Help, 
help, the Balloon Boy is blowing up!” 

But, after all, it was the red, and blue, and 


WHEN THE BALLOON BOY BLEW UP 367 

yellow balloons that blew up. Tommy had to 
cut the strings with his jack knife in order 
to free the Balloon Boy and up they went, 
like the biggest balloon flight Our Park had 
ever seen. Twenty-five and more balloons 
were flying up, up toward the sky, until they 
looked as small as the autumn leaves, and then 
as little as colored stars. 

The Balloon Boy climbed down. But he 
was crying! Yes, instead of being grateful 
for not flying off, he was digging his fists in 
his eyes to keep back the tears. 

It was Muriel, at last, who understood what 
was the matter. She went up to the Balloon 
Boy and tucked ten cents into his hand. ‘ 4 For 
the balloon I didn’t buy,” she said. 

That started all the others, for was it not 
in a way their fault that the Balloon Boy had 
blown up? If they had bought balloons as 
usual, instead of taking donkey rides, it 
never would have happened. Tommy gave 
the Balloon Boy ten cents; so did Dick, and 
so did ever so many of the other children. 
And suddenly he began to smile, a brighter 
smile than they had ever seen on his face. 
That had been the trouble. He had not 




368 


FRIENDLY TALES 


minded Ms own blowing up half so much as 
the blowing up of the balloons, which had been 
Ms trust to sell. 

The children walked part way home with 
the Balloon Boy leaving him down-town, near 
Our Street where the hurdy-gurdys and push¬ 
carts and the bananas and the tambourines 
lived, and the Balloon Boy smiled all the way. 
And they were glad that they had been able 
to do something for him, for they were ever 
so fond of the Balloon Boy. 


A DRESS WITH SPANGLES 


J EANNE was not sure that she liked the 
Old Clothes Man. She was sure about 
the man who pushed the flower cart, and the 
man who turned the handle of the hurdy- 
gurdy, and the man who had a chestnut 
roaster that sang. She could hardly wait for 
these to come down the street of Our City 
where her mother had their little dairy lunch 
room. But it was different with the Old 
Clothes Man. 

His beard was so long, and his coat was so 
tattered, and his face was so wrinkled that he 
looked like the pictures of Father Time. 
From one season’s end to the other, he stood 
at the corner or walked right through the mid¬ 
dle of the street crying in his funny, cracked 
voice, 

“Old clothes; old clothes; cash for old 
clothes!” But he spoke so indistinctly that 
it sounded like dark magic he was telling. 
Jeanne, carrying the little tin pails of coffee 

369 


370 


FRIENDLY TALES 


for lunch to the cloak-shop people and the 
other indoor workers on the block, always ran 
until she was safely by the Old Clothes Man. 
At least, she did until the day when she 
didn’t! 

It was a bleak, cold day. The horses wore 
blankets and the wind was blowing papers 
wildly here and there, and up toward the sky. 
The traffic policeman was stamping and swing¬ 
ing his arms to keep warm, but the Old 
Clothes Man was too old to do exercises like 
that. Jeanne, in her warm red cap and cape, 
saw him standing in the shelter of a building 
trying to call, “Old clothes,” but his lips were 
too stiff to form the words. 

“He’s really only a poor rag man and just 
suppose that grandfather, who sits so snug and 
warm by the fire in our lunch room, was out 
here!” Jeanne thought. 

She hurried home, and presently she had 
come back with a shining tin pail of steaming 
coffee and some thick ham sandwiches 
wrapped up in paper. She gave the food 
timidly to the Old Clothes Man. 

He could not say anything at first. He 
just ate and drank in a hungry way. 

“I suppose your business isn’t very good,” 


A DRESS WITH SPANGLES 


371 


Jeanne said, waiting for the pail. “I suppose 
almost all of us are still wearing our old 
clothes.” 

The Old Clothes Man nodded. Then he 
laid his hand on Jeanne’s dark curls a mo¬ 
ment in thanks before she hurried home. 

She did not see him for several days after 
that. Once in a while she heard his call on 
another block, so she knew that he was around. 
The weather grew milder at last. The bricks 
of the buildings looked bright and warm in the 
sunshine, and there were branches of pussy 
willows in the flower man’s cart. One day 
when the sparrows were chirping because it 
was spring in Our City, Jeanne saw the Old 
Clothes Man coming again down the street. 
He stopped at their lunch room. He came 
in. 

He looked more ancient, and more like 
Father Time than ever in the clean little room 
among the white tables, but he was smiling. 
He opened one of his bundles and he took out 
—oh, fancy what the Old Clothes Man took 
out and gave to J eanne! 

It was a little blue silk dress for a doll, a 
dress all shimmering with silver spangles like 
broken bits of stars. It glittered so that it 


372 


FRIENDLY TALES 


made the lunch room brighter. It fitted the 
doll that had come from France with Jeanne. 

And as the Old Clothes Man went out, he put 
his hand again on the little girl’s head as if to 
tell her the wonders that even a rag man may 
find, and the thanks that Our City feels for 
kindness to its Poor. 


TIMMY’S MIXED-UP MOVING 


T IMMY, the Irish expressman’s little 
boy, was doing the very best he could 
to help on the first of May. 

“If you take your fine new express cart, 
Timmy,” his mother had said the night be¬ 
fore, “and follow along behind your father 
there’s many a small thing that you’ll be able 
to carry for him. One moving-man, and all 
those families to move!” and Timmy’s mother 
gave the bubbling potatoes in the pot such a 
jab that several burst their jackets. 

So that was how Timmy happened to be out 
bright and early on moving day, going up and 
down the block with his express cart filled with 
teakettles, old shoes, flower pots, one parrot 
in a cage, and a jar of gold fish, to say nothing 
of a kitten he carried in a bag with just its 
head sticking out and mewing so that every¬ 
body laughed at Timmy. 

It seemed as if all Our Town were moving 
into the new apartment house that had just 
been finished, shiny name plates, push buttons 

373 





374 


FRIENDLY TALES 


and all, just around the corner. That was 
where Timmy carried and unloaded Mrs. 
Micheljohn’s pickles and preserves and all her 
tinware that rattled like a peddler’s load all 
the way. And he had to come back for a last 
bundle made up of Mr. Micheljohn’s cane and 
Mrs. Micheljohn’s old umbrellas and little 
Jenny Micheljohn’s crutch, which she didn’t 
need for a day at least because she rode in his 
cart instead of walking. 

Timmy noticed that Jenny was crying a 

little, and he felt none too cheerful himself 
with all the boys laughing at his funny loads 
of the left-over things. He wondered too why 
the Micheljohns were moving into the new 
apartment house, but he didn’t have time to 
ask. He could only unload Jenny and the 
umbrellas and hurry back to Marjorie Wes¬ 
ton’s house. 

“Why, Timmy,” Marjorie said to him as 
she stood on the top step of the house they 
were leaving, “how funny you look, all dusty 
and warm, and moving the things that your 
father hasn’t time for. You just run round 
to the kitchen and Susan will give you a load.” 

So Timmy filled his cart with some dust¬ 
pans, a few brushes, brooms, pails and mops. 


TIMMY'S MIXED-UP MOVING 375 

“Take them to the new apartment house, 
Timmy,” Marjorie called to him. “We have 
the front apartment on the fourth floor.’’ 

Timmy wished the day were over. He was 
helping his father ever so much, he knew, but 
he thought that he had never seen so many 
things that would fit in a little boy’s cart. 
The rest of the afternoon Timmy moved hats, 
clocks, crockery, mouse-traps, coal scuttles, 
and other small articles until he felt dizzy. 
Sometimes two or three mothers would call to 
him at once, “Oh, Timmy do take the coffee¬ 
pot and the bread-box and the rolling pin with 
you!” And Timmy moved them all, but by 
supper time he felt worried. 

It was growing dark and Timmy, his hands 
blistered and his legs aching, sat on his front 
porch thinking. “I don’t want any pay,” he 
said to himself, “and I know father is still 
trucking, but I wish—” What Timmy 
wished, though, was suddenly lost in another 
thought. “I don’t know where I took those 
two dolls’ houses.” He stood up, scared. “I 
don’t even remember whose they were—a 
great, big dolls’ house with up-and-down stairs 
and servant dolls and velvet furniture; and a 
nice little dolls’ house made out of a painted 



376 


FRIENDLY TALES 


box and all full of rag dolls and, oh, dear, I 
must go and look them up.” 

Timmy ran down the block and around the 
corner. He dodged a policeman. “I haven’t 
kept those dolls’ houses,” he thought, “but 
the girls may think I have.” 

When he reached the new apartment house, 
he looked at the name-plates. Down at the 
bottom a plate said, Mr. Micheljohn, Janitor. 
Timmy rang that bell first and went in when 
the door opened, magically, by itself. 

Before Timmy reached the basement where 
the janitor lived, he heard little lame Jenny 
laughing. She sounded like a bird. Timmy 
saw her in front of the big dolls’ house, her 
eyes as bright as sunbeams. 

“Look, Timmy!” she cried, “I didn’t want 
to come to this basement to live, but see what 
the Moving-Man gave me—this beautiful little 
dolls’ house, all my own.” 

Timmy almost ran up to the fourth floor 
where Marjorie had moved in. They would 
think his father had taken Marjorie’s dolls’ 
house. He would ask Marjorie what to do 
about it. But there was Marjorie, just hug¬ 
ging an armful of little rag dolls. 

“Look, Timmy!” she cried, “I was getting 


TIMMY’S MIXED-UP MOVING 


377 


so tired of my big dolls’ bouse with all the 
servant dolls to look after, but see what the 
Moving-Man brought me—this dear, home¬ 
made house, and these nice rag dolls!” 

So Timmy told Marjorie all about it, and 
how worried he had been. 

“It couldn’t have been better, Timmy,” 
Marjorie said. “If Jenny will let me keep 
her house, I will love to let her keep mine. 
I ’ll let her have it anyway, ’ ’ she decided. But 
Jenny was glad to have her rag dolls live on 
the fourth floor. 

And Timmy went home to supper on moving 
day, his hands in his empty pockets that yet 
felt full. There would be a pot of savory 
Irish stew for supper, father’s busy day had 
not been quite so busy, and how Jenny Michel- 
john had smiled! 


THE END 








































